All Posts Tagged With: "rio"

“China’s steel output has taken up 48% of the world’s total in the H1 of this year, further exacerbates the oversupply picture and hurts the healthy industrial development. And Mr Roland Verstappen vice president of ArcelorMittal also said steel overcapacity is quite clear in China and which will press down steel prices, sweep smaller mills out of the market and causes unemployment.”

Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan announced this weekend that Chinalco is more than welcome to 11% of Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO). He made it sound like there were some caveats, provisos, and addendums. But at the end of the day the Treasurer said, “I have decided to raise no objections under Australia’s foreign investment policy.” Okay. There are just two conditions that apply, though.

The S&P ASX/200 limped home yesterday to finish the fiscal year down 16.9%. Let’s call it 17. It was the first down year since 2002, or 1 BB (Before the Boom). If not for the iron-ore solid performance of BHP Billiton (ASX: BHP)-up 24.7% on the financial year-it would have been much worse for the ASX 200. Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) did its part to hold the line for the resource sector as well. Rio was up 38.2% for year, from $98 to $135.50.

Is BHP Billiton (ASX: BHP) a serious oil player? Or, let’s put it this way. Does the fact that oil touched US$127 in futures trading contribute to BHP Billiton’s earnings and its war chest for its pursuit of Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO)? BHP thinks the answer is yes. BHP Billitons’s oil projects showed up in a research report we reviewed yesterday. The report tried to answer the question of where future global oil production would come from. There is a 32 million barrel per day gap between what the world…

Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) out-punched BHP Billiton (ASX: BHP) in the half-year-results contest. Rio Tinto reported $8.3 billion in “underlying profit.” Diggers and Drillers editor Al Robinson looks at BHP Billiton side-by-side with Rio Tinto and says, “Both had negative earnings growth at the bottom line (BHP Billiton -2.8%, Rio Tinto -1%). Both had positive earnings after strategically removing a few significant items (2.8%, 2%). Rio Tinto’s result was slightly above expectations, and BHP Billiton’s slightly below.”