The nation’s big miners have posted record production levels for the June quarter, following a March quarter downturn resulting in the main from severe seasonal weather conditions.
The nation’s big miners have posted record production levels for the June quarter, following a March quarter downturn resulting in the main from severe seasonal weather conditions.
Both Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton posted record levels of iron ore production in the latest quarter following the cyclonic conditions experienced in the north-west of the state earlier this year.
Rio Tinto, in its second quarter report, recorded iron ore production of 33.3 million tonnes for the quarter, a 16 per cent increase compared with the previous quarter.
However, the company said the effects of the severe cyclone season experienced in the first quarter continued into the second quarter at both Hamersley and Robe operations, albeit to a lesser extent.
The company said global iron ore demand remained strong in all markets during the quarter, with Hamersley and Robe agreeing to a 19 per cent increase in the benchmark price for their products for the 2006 contract year.
The world’s largest miner, BHP Billiton, also reported record annual production in iron ore for the quarter with 26.1 million tonnes produced, representing a 16 per cent increase on the March quarter and 3 per cent increase on the corresponding quarter last year.
The company said the record production levels reflected the ramp-up of recently expanded capacity in response to continuing strong customer demand and recovery from weather related impacts in the March 2006 quarter.
At year end, 97.07mt of iron ore was produced compared to 96.74mt in 2005.
BHP’s June quarter also revealed a substantial increase in natural gas production, with a 27 per cent increase to 98.6 billion cubic feet from the pervious quarter. Annual natural gas production for BHP hit a record figure of 360.4 billion cubic feet, up 4 per cent on the previous year.
The company said its record annual natural gas production primarily reflected the commissioning of Minerva in Australia and the fourth LNG train at the North West Shelf, partly offset by lost production from the Typhoon/Boris facility and lower demand for Bass Strait gas.
Despite a 6 per cent increase in crude oil and condensate production for the quarter, BHP’s annual production wasn’t so favourable with a 10 per cent fall in crude oil and condensate production to 45.87 million barrels from 2005.
Condensate production at the North West Shelf fell 4 per cent to 5.1 million barrels due to well-related down-time and natural liquids decline.
Woodside Petroleum also cited the improved weather conditions at its NWS operations from the previous quarter as a major reason for an 8.8 per cent increase to 15.6 million barrels of oil equivalent.
In its second quarter report, the company said higher commodity prices resulted in record quarterly sales revenue of $848 million, up 17.8 per cent on the previous quarter, with its NWS LNG operations contributing more than $527 million in sales revenue.
Woodside said increased NWS production was due to higher system availability and increased production resulting from the cooler seasonal conditions.
However, the company said its condensate production from the NWSV of 19,335 barrels of oil per day was lower than the pervious quarter’s 21,936 bbl per day due to an 18-day shutdown of operations for cleaning and reduced gas rates during the planned LNG Train 2 shutdown.
Under Woodside’s share, the floating production storage and offloading vessel Cossack Pioneer produced 12,206 bbl per day, a 46 per cent increase on the previous quarter, due to higher system availability following repairs and reduced cyclone activity.
Meanwhile, Newcrest Mining Ltd said in June that gold production for the quarter was up 10 per cent from last quarter to 401,742 ounces of gold, while full-year gold production was 1.5 million ounces.
The company’s Telfer mine, located in the north-west of the state, produced 184,415 ounces in the fourth quarter, up 15 per cent from the previous quarter, with the mine producing 650,016 ounces for the year.
The full-year result falls short of the company’s original and revised forecasts of 800,000 ounces and 700,000 ounces respectively for the Telfer mine, due to delays in full commissioning of the mine.
In June, the company said it was unable to give any firm forecast of Telfer’s production for the full year.
The company expects gold recoveries to improve in 2006-07.
