Matt Mckenzie

South Australian mining junior Flinders Mines has announced a capital raising of $5 million, with the company to put the cash towards a loan repayment and tenement expenditure commitments at its Pilbara iron ore project.

The Business News index of 30 Western Australian companies outperformed the ASX200 in the September quarter on the back of stronger showings from a handful of miners and contractors.

Continuing investment in major resources projects nearing completion contributed $35 billion to the Western Australian economy in 2015-16, around two thirds of Australia’s resources investment spend in the year, according to the Department of Mines and Petroleum.

More than half of the electricity used in the Pilbara town of Onslow will be sourced from renewable sources by 2020, with the state government today announcing it will be home to Australia’s largest distributed generation microgrid.

Falling private sector investment in heavy industry and electricity generation were major contributors to a big drop-off in total construction and engineering work in Western Australia in June, down 21.7 per cent quarter on quarter to $6.75 billion.

Echo Resources and Metaliko Resources are expected to announce a tie-up this week, after the two ASX-listed companies with assets in the eastern Goldfields region announced trading halts today.

The state’s budget position for the 2016 financial year has come in nearly $700 million better than was initially forecast when it was released in May last year, but still in the red to the tune of $2 billion, with revenue $915 million down on the previous year.

Australia has a greater reliance on its economic and financial relationship with the US than at any time since World War II, former Labor leader Kim Beazley told a Business News breakfast, but a Donald Trump presidency could mean a big shift in the superpower’s relationship with its allies.

Colin Barnett has seen off an attempted spill motion at today’s party room meeting by 31 votes to 15, emerging with what he claimed was a united Liberal team after a ‘therapeutic’ exercise.