The 2013 Mining Business Outlook report by Newport Consulting has reported a steep free fall in mining sentiment among the industry leaders. Every year, in the last four years, Newport Consulting author a Mining Business Outlook Report, as an independent pulse-check of Australia’s mining industry. This year, a special election-year edition, features more than 60 lengthy interviews with the industry leaders.
The headlines messages from those interviews are:
- Companies are significantly slashing CAPEX spend. The leaders, for the first time in four years, have declared that they are slashing CAPEX spend. Not postponing, nor increasing it.
- Cost Control and Management are high on the agenda. Many mines are now operating at a loss due to cost blow-outs and the fall in commodity price.
- The labor market is contracting. Labour and skill shortage crisis are gone, replaced with fewer vacancy and job redundancies.
- Miners must act now to improve productivity. Operational efficiency must be improved. There is a slight trend among miners to focus on operational excellence and productivity.
- Innovation must be embraced by the resource sector. Advancements in the mining industry through innovation and new technologies.
From the distance, it is all doom and gloom for the mining sector. However every cloud has a silver lining. The resource boom was so convincing that there was little or no need to innovate. The challenge is now for the leaders to rethink their approach to operational excellence and to drive value back to the operation.
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