I bought into NHC this week. Very low risk coal miner in my view. I've done more buying in the past 2 days than I have for the past 18 months!
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I bought into NHC this week. Very low risk coal miner in my view. I've done more buying in the past 2 days than I have for the past 18 months!
NHC - AGM presentation (check out page 19 re cash balance :eek:)
http://www.stocknessmonster.com/news...E=ASX&N=205563
NHC - Quarterly
http://www.stocknessmonster.com/news...E=ASX&N=205561
http://www.stocknessmonster.com/news...E=ASX&N=205566
NHC - New MD... The market likes the news :)
http://www.stocknessmonster.com/news...E=ASX&N=205639
Back in NHC today after selling out in the early Nov spike. For a stock where 90% of the market cap is cash and land it sure is volatile. At current prices it's back at the level where it's being valued at no more than cash and land backing.
Will look to sell near $3.70 or buy more sub $3
Directors buying is always a good sign ;)
http://www.stocknessmonster.com/news...E=ASX&N=206353
http://www.stocknessmonster.com/news...E=ASX&N=206354
Bought IPL a few dats ago, and only got around to adding it to by disclosue list today.
Correct Shasta, SOL is the main shareholder. Lots of incestuous relationships between the various companies....including BKW as I mentioned to you previously.
Helps when you have your own port facilities in QLD :cool:
Coal trains to ports 'used inefficiently'
MANY Australian mining companies operate inefficiently when it comes to transporting coal to the coast by rail, McKinsey & Co analysts say.
John Lydon, principal of McKinsey Australia's operations practice based in Sydney, said that in certain parts of the Hunter Valley, for instance, fewer than 20 trains could do the work of the 30-odd trains now being used.
"The total mine-rail-port system is less efficient due to multiple players having conflicting incentives, which creates difficulty in co-ordinating the best outcome for the system as a whole," he said.
"There's also been a historic lack of real incentive for service providers to improve throughput."
He explained that because in certain parts of the Hunter Valley producers varied between small operations and major global mining companies, train allocation suffered and the absence of overall co-ordination greatly reduced efficiency.
"The Hunter Valley Coal Chain has no powers to order train allocation or establish commercial incentives in a way that would optimise the system," he said.
A complication in NSW is that the state Government operates the rail system and, although it has committed itself to a $150 million program of eliminating rail bottlenecks between the mines and the Port Waratah Coal Loader at Newcastle, the rail network is not the miners' to organise.
While the mine-owned railways in Western Australia were more efficient, he said, the prospect of having third parties gain access to them could threaten to reduce efficiency by 15-20 per cent.
"Say you have a situation at the moment where as many as three trains are waiting for one to come through. If they're all owned by the same company, it can be worked out, but if they are owned by other companies, there are a number of extra issues that emerge," he said.
Mr Lydon's colleague Jimmy Hexter, a director in McKinsey's Beijing office, said that the medium-term outlook for Australia's resource trade with China was more bullish than bearish, despite last week's negative short-term numbers coming out of China.
McKinsey analysis said that between now and 2025 China's urban population would grow from 650 million now to about 1billion, Mr Hexter said. "That's 20 million people moving to the cities per year, or the entire population of Australia. They will need homes, schools, hospitals and a wide range of other infrastructure."
For example, he said, China was expected to build more than 100 new airports in that period. "China has $US2 trillion in reserves and relatively little debt.
"Given that the biggest problem facing China is the difference in the standard of living between rural and urban households, this is going to happen and the infrastructure it will demand (will) be huge."
Australian project managers had more to learn from China and India than they had previously imagined, the two McKinsey men said, thanks to the simpler approach taken in those countries.
"Even if you strip out the difference in labour costs and safety standards, you'll find that they would still have some important advantages over Australian projects because of the way they execute projects," Mr Hexter said.
He said that Chinese investors often had their own money in projects and therefore eliminated as much unnecessary spending as possible, while in India site managers were often invested with powers to make quick decisions on their own account rather than waiting for decisions to be made higher up the chain,
This often optimised projects at the site level that enabled savings in both time and cost, he said.
Mr Lydon said Australian clients, like many companies around the world, had become more receptive to the notion of introducing change since the financial crisis began.
The McKinsey experts said the big challenge facing managements was to try to maintain a flexible and forward-looking approach through the crisis.