17 August 2011

Then again… election news mine edition

On the one hand, Rio Tinto ”Plans to double Labrador mine output”  according to the headline on a CBC news report.

On the other hand,

ONE of Australia's leading experts on global risk warned yesterday that a China slowdown would cause "quite an emptying of the large resource investment pipeline in Australia".

"Needless to say, the most marginal projects would be the first casualties," he added.

Roger Donnelly, chief economist at the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation, the government-owned export credit agency, told The Australian that "in the worst case, where there is a real market meltdown that leads to a North Atlantic double-dip, I don't think China would be spared".  [The Australian, August 10]

Then again, what the CBC story says in the second paragraph is that the company is “starting work on a tentative plan”.

Starting work.

Tentative plan.

Tentative.

As in maybe, kinda, sorta.

Read a little farther and you will see that the company is thinking about possibly-theoretically-with-a-bit-of-luck, doubling production at the mine in “the back end of 2015.”

Just in time for the provincial general election that will take place that same year, too no doubt.

Cool how that works out.

 

- srbp -