Blasting off
The Note loves a bit of corporate strategising and often thinks wistfully about what might have happened if we had been gainfully employed from the beginning.
Alas, we have to leave that to the big boys and allow ourselves a chance to second-guess them.
Take for instance, Perth-based Wesfarmers and its efforts to see off challenges on its home turf in the explosives business.
Wesfarmers, via its subsidiary CSBP, already dominates the supply of the major explosives ingredient ammonium nitrate in this state with a Kwinana factory that can make up 520,000 tonnes per annum of the stuff – more than the existing WA market can buy.
Several rivals had a plan to cut Wesfarmers’ lunch as the blasting market took off thanks to the demands of our mighty mining industry, including the dysfunctional joint venture behind Burrup Fertilisers.
While Wesfarmers is thought to be in the running to buy into that venture, it has just received environmental approval to expand its Kwinana facility to 936,000tpa, which would make it tough competition for any new entrant.
If this volume rise sounds like overkill, it’s worth noting that Wesfarmers told the market in June it was planning to lift production capacity to 780,000tpa, which would have kept local supply above forecast demand until at least 2020.
Does Wesfarmers know something we don’t? Probably, because it has loads of boffins strategising all day long.
Last howl
Last week we meant to mention that Czech president Vaclav Klaus is speaking at the Duxton on Friday July 22, so this is short notice.
Therefore, we got more organised this week and noted that white-collar criminal turned motivational speaker specialising in ethics, Justin Belfort, aka the Wolf of Wall Street, is in town on August 4 to speak at a dinner for the Telethon Adventurers.