Good news for Saldanha Steel and the West Coast

LONDON – World steel demand is growing faster and earlier than expected, driven primarily by China's runaway growth, and is now expected to hit pre-crisis levels this year, the World Steel Association said on Tuesday.

The body expects apparent steel use to rise by 10,7% to R1,241-billion tons this year, while demand is expected to hit a historical high at 1,306-billion tons in 2011.

"The world steel industry now seems firmly set on a path to recovery," Daniel Novegil, chairman of the association's economics committee said in a statement. The forecasts show improved figures compared with estimates published in late 2009.

"The recovery is not only earlier but also stronger than expected. It was driven in large part by government stimulus packages and recent inventory re-stocking," he added.

China's apparent steel use in 2010 is expected to increase by 6,7% to 579-million tons. In 2009, it was estimated to have risen to 542,4-million tons.

The forecasts are from Worldsteel's short range outlook, which its board approved in Vienna over the weekend.

While the growth picture for this year and next was looking robust, Novegil noted a much slower pace of recovery in key developed economies.

"The emerging economies, who in total maintained positive growth through the crisis will continue to show strong growth, driving world steel demand in the future," he said.

"However the current recovery in major developed economies is slower and the projected steel demand for them in 2011 is well below 2007 levels," he added.

The association has also published March global crude steel production figures, which showed a hefty jump of 30,6% year-on-year, bringing the production to 120-million tons.

In the first quarter of this year, crude steel output rose to 342,3-million tons, rising 29% compared with the same period last year.

Source http://www.engineeringnews.co.za

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Langebaan skate park nearly finished

Here are some more photos from Kevin Schnider of the Langebaan park which is about 1.5hours up the West Coast. This has been in the works for a while and the guys at Cape Sports Club are the ones behind this project. It's still going to be a couple of weeks before it's done. I've approached them about doing some kind of demo at the Grand Opening, so we'll see. There is accommodation across the road from the park and a cheap camp site nearby too. I can see some good weekends away happening soon. Thanks for the shots, Kevin.

If anyone goes to this park, or any other park, please go with a good attitude, don't snake the locals, don't litter and don't balls it up for everyone else. Thanks.

Source http://wcbmx.blogspot.com

news sponsored by http://shopwestcoast.blogspot.com/

Transnet planning expansion of the Sishen-Saldanha corridor.

KUMBA Iron Ore has reached a “new spirit of cooperation” with Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) over the expansion of the Sishen-Saldanha export corridor beyond a capacity of 60 million tonnes (MT) per year.

That’s according to CEO Chris Griffith , who spoke to financial media at the group’s Sishen iron ore mine.

Griffith said Kumba, rival iron ore exporter Assmang and manganese producer Samancor had agreed with TFR to appoint Australian consultants Aurecon to carry out a new study on how the railway line and the port facilities at Saldanha Bay might be expanded.

Griffith added the initial report from the new study should be available by about July.

The development is a breakthrough, given the situation that ruled as recently as November.

Griffith reportedly upset TFR by commenting to Miningmx during a visit to Kumba’s developing Sishen South mine that he felt the railway line could be run better with private sector involvement.

Griffith repeated that view in his latest assessment, but stressed that TFR had improved its performance markedly in recent months on the operation of the line.

Kumba boosted its export sales of iron ore from 24.9mt in 2008 to 34.2mt in 2009.

Sishen’s current project pipeline can add another 29% to present export levels, while the mine has the potential to produce about 70mt annually by 2019.

Griffith said Aurecon had been appointed to bring “fresh eyes” to the future expansion of the Sishen line after TFR came up with a capital estimate flatly ruled out by Kumba.

He said: “TFR came up with a capital cost number for the expansion beyond 60mt, which I just wiped from my memory because it made any expansion impossible.

“That capital cost would have resulted in an incredible tariff rate to be charged by TFR.

“We could not have the same guys doing the same stuff here, which is why the four partners agreed to bring in Aurecon. Hopefully, the new study is going to come up with a different approach and a more reasonable number.

“We have also placed firmly on the table that, while we are not that concerned over who owns the railway line, we do want to have a say in the running of the operation.”

Griffiths said the inclusion of Samancor in the negotiations also respresented a major change in approach.

Previously, the iron ore exporters were against sharing capacity on the line with the manganese exporters for a number of reasons, including possible contamination of iron ore stockpiled at Saldanha Bay.

Griffith said in November such potential contamination was “a huge issue” for the iron ore exporters and that “the expanded port has to be designed to make sure that this does not happen”.

Turning to iron ore pricing, Griffith said Kumba’s strategy remained one of letting the big three (Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Vale) settle first, after which Kumba would finalise its prices.

He said Kumba would support the move to more frequent index pricing such as the quarterly system implemented by the three major iron ore producers “because there’s more value there”.

He added Kumba intended to continue selling 85% to 90% of its exports on long-term volume contracts. This was because it added value from the group’s “niche product strategy” utilising the high grade and hardness of the lumpy ore produced by Sishen.

Kumba’s current cash cost of producing a ton of ore is $11.8/t. The free-on-board (fob) cost at Saldanha Bay is about $20/t after taking into account railage and port handling costs.

The landed cost of a tonne of iron ore exported from South Africa to China is about $40/t after freight charges.

Last year’s benchmark China landed iron ore price was $62/t. Since July the index price for 62% fe iron ore landed in China has shot up, reaching $130/t in January and around $165/t currently.

Griffith said: “The last nine months of this year should see some very good prices coming through. Kumba should have another fantastic year, although we have a few distractions for the corporate team to deal with.”

Source http://www.miningmx.com

News sponsored by West Coast Office National for all your printing & stationery needs.www.pencil.co.za

May I invite you to join GlobalWarriors.net?

Global Warriors is a group of South Africans, living across the globe, all working towards an Internet lifestyle, where their income flows wherever they live. This means that they can live wherever they want to.

I am Peter Carruthers. Since 2002, while living in Knysna, all of my income has come from the Internet. I now live in Norway, one of the most expensive places on earth. I don't speak Norwegian, which makes this a very hostile place. Yet, since my income comes from the Internet, it doesn't make any difference to my lifestyle.

I have been supporting thousands of off-line business owners since 1992, and in an online community since 2004. About a year ago many of my clients started asking me about how I have managed to survive online for as long as I have. Turns out that a lot of people want this internet lifestyle as well.

For us it's not just about finding the income on the web. It's about the business structures that allow you to move about without the government being able to get in the way. One of the biggest problems we small business owners face in our off-line businesses is red tape. Each year brings more rules. Each new set of rules wastes more hours, and costs more money.

As I get older a whole bunch of my clients are aging with me, and at the age of 52 retirement looms as an expensive problem. When faced with the 700 hours needed to build a R1000 per month pension the traditional way, a bunch of my clients have opted to use the Internet to supplement their pensions because finding that same R1000 per month is the work of only a few hours.*

The Internet is a vast new playing field. The normal rules of business don't apply. Where else can you start a venture from scratch, and within 17 days have it worth R2 million, generating R160 000 per month? Off an initial investment of 30 hours and R5000? (This is not the kind of result you can expect this year! It's taken me 8 years to learn how to do it. it won't take you that long because I'm going to show you all the mistakes I made en route.)*

Our role is simple: To teach you all that you need to know to build income streams which will follow you wherever you choose to live. (We have some ideas about great places, and how you can get passports to stay there. But that's an aside.)

When you join our community you get more than 500 people walking down the same path as you are. We have distilled everything that we know into a simple paint-by-numbers model that you can use to:

• find ideas that will generate income through the Internet;
• research those ideas before you spend any money to make sure that you're not wasting your time or effort;
• test your search results to ensure that you can attract sales;
• easily and cost-effectively create a range of products while you build a community of like-minded people who enjoy the value that you are adding to their lives and want to pay you for it.

As we work through each of these facets with you, we will do our best to make it as easy as we can for you to grasp these concepts and skills quickly. We have thousands of stories to share about what works, and why. We have many mistakes to share about what doesn't work, and why. And we can show you how to stay focused so that you do not get sidetracked by all the noise and hype and shouting online.

As part of the deal we will give you free hosting for your test sites and some of your production sites -- simply because it easier for us to support you when things go wrong. This is worth hundreds of Rands each month.

Our forum ensures that if you have any questions, you can find answers quickly. You can easily search for an answer to a problem you have, and if you don't find an answer, post the question -- and we will answer it within a few hours. In answering that question for you, we're also answering it for everybody else as well. That just makes good sense. So we do it quickly.

If you have a specific idea that you want to test drive, or want help with, we are an e-mail away, and very often we will call you back within a few minutes because some things are easier to talk about than to write about.

We know the problems that the South African Internet creates, and we show you how to work around them when it comes to building an Internet lifestyle. After all, we were on the same lilo a few years ago. Which reminds me, just because we happen to live in Norway and the UK, doesn't mean we wouldn't rather be on the beach in Durban! There is a long story there, which we are happy to share with anybody who's really interested.

I have spent the past 18 years working closely with South African small business owners struggling to survive in an increasingly hostile off-line environment. Seeing everybody else face the same challenges I had led me to spend a lot of time trying to build a global lifestyle that would follow me wherever I went. I want to share that with you.

So, to summarise, you will get:

• unlimited help working through a simple but powerful model to take you from zero to a online income within a few months;
• free hosting for most of your efforts;
• instant forum support for most of your questions, with a few hours lead time for questions being asked for the first time;
• in-depth training in all the tools we use to create our own incomes;
• hours and hours of in-depth video training and discussion to show you how the tools work, how the approaches work, and why;
• our team working 24/7 to help you get where we are as quickly as we can;
• offshore structures to help you resolve some of the legal issues South Africans face in the global space;
• a very deep understanding of the South African small business space and the challenges owners face;
• a weekly live webinar covering in-depth training at one of three levels -- basic, intermediate, and advanced;
• a weekly live webinar covering questions in a simple question and answer format where we field your questions in front of the entire group;
• a simple approach to adding value to your life -- which goes like this: if we are not adding value we should get out of the way;
• a simple agreement which says that you can leave at any time for any reason and we will refund you your most recent payment.

More than 500 people are already having fun in this group exploring intriguing Internet spaces.

Most folk think that the Internet is already overcrowded, and that few opportunities are left. That's not true. The Internet certainly is crowded with buyers, more than 1.7 billion people who have problems and are looking for answers. What the Internet really needs is you -- with some answers to some of those problems. And by adding that value, you will get paid well. We will help you find the problems that you can answer, and show you how to answer them profitably. Or you get your money back. It's simple.

Your monthly investment is $49.97 -- for as long as you are comfortable that we are adding value. We will ask ClickBank to create a recurring monthly debit for 36 months when you join. But you can cancel at any time, for any reason, with no penalties whatsoever and, if you want, we will refund you any payments made in the last 60 days of your membership.

Although the principles that we present and the tools that we discuss are universal, and can be used by anybody who understands English, we find that we resonate far better with South Africans -- no matter where they live. We understand who they are and why they do the strange things they do, so we don't get to offended when they do them here. (We're also hoping that as you make your first million online, you might find it in your heart to send us a case of Waterford Shiraz -- an addiction only a South African would understand.)

Within five minutes of joining you will have access to our forum and all of the videos we have recorded -- which you can download immediately. You will immediately receive invitations to the weekly webinars.

Regards,

Peter Carruthers.
Warrior Central

*Earnings Disclaimer: USA FTC regulations require that we tell you that the results you get will be different than those that we get, and those in any testimonials we might share.

May I invite you to join GlobalWarriors.net?

Global Warriors is a group of South Africans, living across the globe, all working towards an Internet lifestyle, where their income flows wherever they live. This means that they can live wherever they want to.

I am Peter Carruthers. Since 2002, while living in Knysna, all of my income has come from the Internet. I now live in Norway, one of the most expensive places on earth. I don't speak Norwegian, which makes this a very hostile place. Yet, since my income comes from the Internet, it doesn't make any difference to my lifestyle.

I have been supporting thousands of off-line business owners since 1992, and in an online community since 2004. About a year ago many of my clients started asking me about how I have managed to survive online for as long as I have. Turns out that a lot of people want this internet lifestyle as well.

For us it's not just about finding the income on the web. It's about the business structures that allow you to move about without the government being able to get in the way. One of the biggest problems we small business owners face in our off-line businesses is red tape. Each year brings more rules. Each new set of rules wastes more hours, and costs more money.

As I get older a whole bunch of my clients are aging with me, and at the age of 52 retirement looms as an expensive problem. When faced with the 700 hours needed to build a R1000 per month pension the traditional way, a bunch of my clients have opted to use the Internet to supplement their pensions because finding that same R1000 per month is the work of only a few hours.*

The Internet is a vast new playing field. The normal rules of business don't apply. Where else can you start a venture from scratch, and within 17 days have it worth R2 million, generating R160 000 per month? Off an initial investment of 30 hours and R5000? (This is not the kind of result you can expect this year! It's taken me 8 years to learn how to do it. it won't take you that long because I'm going to show you all the mistakes I made en route.)*

Our role is simple: To teach you all that you need to know to build income streams which will follow you wherever you choose to live. (We have some ideas about great places, and how you can get passports to stay there. But that's an aside.)

When you join our community you get more than 500 people walking down the same path as you are. We have distilled everything that we know into a simple paint-by-numbers model that you can use to:

• find ideas that will generate income through the Internet;
• research those ideas before you spend any money to make sure that you're not wasting your time or effort;
• test your search results to ensure that you can attract sales;
• easily and cost-effectively create a range of products while you build a community of like-minded people who enjoy the value that you are adding to their lives and want to pay you for it.

As we work through each of these facets with you, we will do our best to make it as easy as we can for you to grasp these concepts and skills quickly. We have thousands of stories to share about what works, and why. We have many mistakes to share about what doesn't work, and why. And we can show you how to stay focused so that you do not get sidetracked by all the noise and hype and shouting online.

As part of the deal we will give you free hosting for your test sites and some of your production sites -- simply because it easier for us to support you when things go wrong. This is worth hundreds of Rands each month.

Our forum ensures that if you have any questions, you can find answers quickly. You can easily search for an answer to a problem you have, and if you don't find an answer, post the question -- and we will answer it within a few hours. In answering that question for you, we're also answering it for everybody else as well. That just makes good sense. So we do it quickly.

If you have a specific idea that you want to test drive, or want help with, we are an e-mail away, and very often we will call you back within a few minutes because some things are easier to talk about than to write about.

We know the problems that the South African Internet creates, and we show you how to work around them when it comes to building an Internet lifestyle. After all, we were on the same lilo a few years ago. Which reminds me, just because we happen to live in Norway and the UK, doesn't mean we wouldn't rather be on the beach in Durban! There is a long story there, which we are happy to share with anybody who's really interested.

I have spent the past 18 years working closely with South African small business owners struggling to survive in an increasingly hostile off-line environment. Seeing everybody else face the same challenges I had led me to spend a lot of time trying to build a global lifestyle that would follow me wherever I went. I want to share that with you.

So, to summarise, you will get:

• unlimited help working through a simple but powerful model to take you from zero to a online income within a few months;
• free hosting for most of your efforts;
• instant forum support for most of your questions, with a few hours lead time for questions being asked for the first time;
• in-depth training in all the tools we use to create our own incomes;
• hours and hours of in-depth video training and discussion to show you how the tools work, how the approaches work, and why;
• our team working 24/7 to help you get where we are as quickly as we can;
• offshore structures to help you resolve some of the legal issues South Africans face in the global space;
• a very deep understanding of the South African small business space and the challenges owners face;
• a weekly live webinar covering in-depth training at one of three levels -- basic, intermediate, and advanced;
• a weekly live webinar covering questions in a simple question and answer format where we field your questions in front of the entire group;
• a simple approach to adding value to your life -- which goes like this: if we are not adding value we should get out of the way;
• a simple agreement which says that you can leave at any time for any reason and we will refund you your most recent payment.

More than 500 people are already having fun in this group exploring intriguing Internet spaces.

Most folk think that the Internet is already overcrowded, and that few opportunities are left. That's not true. The Internet certainly is crowded with buyers, more than 1.7 billion people who have problems and are looking for answers. What the Internet really needs is you -- with some answers to some of those problems. And by adding that value, you will get paid well. We will help you find the problems that you can answer, and show you how to answer them profitably. Or you get your money back. It's simple.

Your monthly investment is $49.97 -- for as long as you are comfortable that we are adding value. We will ask ClickBank to create a recurring monthly debit for 36 months when you join. But you can cancel at any time, for any reason, with no penalties whatsoever and, if you want, we will refund you any payments made in the last 60 days of your membership.

Although the principles that we present and the tools that we discuss are universal, and can be used by anybody who understands English, we find that we resonate far better with South Africans -- no matter where they live. We understand who they are and why they do the strange things they do, so we don't get to offended when they do them here. (We're also hoping that as you make your first million online, you might find it in your heart to send us a case of Waterford Shiraz -- an addiction only a South African would understand.)

Within five minutes of joining you will have access to our forum and all of the videos we have recorded -- which you can download immediately. You will immediately receive invitations to the weekly webinars.

Regards,

Peter Carruthers.
Warrior Central

*Earnings Disclaimer: USA FTC regulations require that we tell you that the results you get will be different than those that we get, and those in any testimonials we might share.

Transnet Saldanha Bay focus on Iron ore expansion

South Africa's State-owned transport utility Transnet is engaged in "serious talks" with Northern Cape iron-ore and manganese miners on the creation of capacity beyond 60-million tons a year, Kumba Iron Ore CEO Chris Griffith said on Thursday.

Griffith told Engineering News Online during a mine visit that consulting engineering company Aurecon had been introduced to shed fresh light on how the Sishen-Saldanha corridor could be expanded beyond that yearly capacity.

"We have had a number of engagements to see how the industry could work with Transnet to change what happens on the iron-ore export line beyond 60-million tons," he said.

Transnet is currently completing the execution of the expansion to 47-million tons a year, and is in the construction phase of the expansion from 47-million tons to 60-million tons.

Increasing the capacity beyond 60-million tons, for which plans have still to be drawn up, is scheduled to take place by 2013.

"It's very important that we start the engagement now for the building of capacity beyond 60-million tons, notwithstanding the fact that Transnet still has to build the capacity from 47-million tons to the 60-million ton level," Griffith told Engineering News Online during a mine visit.

Three major private-sector participants - Kumba, Assmang, Samancor - have been engaged with Transnet. Assmang is both an iron-ore and manganese miner and Samancor is a manganese miner.

Initially, a competition lawyer attended the meetings so that the industry was not seen as colluding and later the Competition Tribunal gave the process the all clear.

It was decided that new consultants be introduced in order to ensure that past thinking be excluded and a fresh approach adopted.

Transnet has made it clear that its balance sheet can withstand expansion of the iron-ore line up to 60-million tons, but that beyond that level, private sector participation will be necessary.

Consultants involved will be required to ensure that any future expansion is done at an appropriate capital cost. Initial estimates tabled have reportedly been deemed to be prohibitively expensive.

Manganese is currently railed, unsatisfactorily, on the general-freight line to Port Elizabeth, in the Eastern Cape and its transport on what has hitherto been a single-commodity link from the Northern Cape to the port of Saldanha would be a first.

Transnet is studying plans for a heavy-haul manganese channel either through Saldanha, on South Africa's west coast, or through the new deep-water harbour at Ngqura, on the east coast.

Griffith said it was important that rail discussions be carried out timeously to allow mines time to ramp-up to higher levels of production.

Kumba last year exported more than 34-million tons of iron-ore from Saldanha Bay, while Assmang is currently expanding its iron-ore mining capacity through its Khumani project. Steps are also being considered to increase manganese exports beyond five-million a year to 14-million a year.

Kumba's current project pipeline alone can add 29% to its present export operations.

The current discussions still have to deal with the issue of the private sector's involvement in funding the expansion, pricing and operational matters.

"We will have discussions on how the mining industry will be participating at a later stage, but it is actually good news that we are, already at this stage of our engagement, in very serious talks about how to take this forward," Griffith added to Engineering News Online.

Transnet's status as a State-owned enterprise also meant that Cabinet approval would be required for any private participation in its business operations.

Source http://www.engineeringnews.co.za

News sponsored by West Coast Office National for all your printing & stationery needs.www.pencil.co.za

Transnet considers ship repair facility for Saldanha Bay

TRANSNET was assessing proposals for a business plan to set up a ship repair facility, Vuyo Kahla, a group executive in the office of the group chief executive, said yesterday.

Kahla said no decision had been taken yet on whether the facility would indeed be established and where it would be situated, as the company still needed to evaluate its viability.

"Every now and again, people raise the need for a ship repair facility. There seems to be a belief that there is a market for it," Kahla said.

"If there is a business case for it, we will invest in activities that will support the ship repair facility but we would want to bring in people who have the expertise."

Kahla said in the event that a ship repair facility was built, the transport parastatal's main role would be to provide the property using the National Ports Authority's assets.

"We don't see ourselves as experts in ship repair. We will work out where there could be a proper place and the private sector will be involved," he said. "We want to run our ports on a complementary system. But the key point is that not everything will be done by ourselves," he added.

Kahla said many people believed that a ship repair facility would be viable because the number of vessels going round the Cape had increased as people avoided Somali seas owing to the piracy risk.

Transnet sought proposals from the private sector in February. If built, the facility would be housed at either Richards Bay port or Saldanha Bay port.

Meanwhile, Kahla said the company would make a decision within a year on where to move the manganese ore line, which is currently run from the Port Elizabeth port.

He said people had been calling for the line to be moved elsewhere for some time and the general expectation was that it would shift to the newly built port of Ngqura.

"At the moment, we are assessing what would be the best option. It is between Ngqura and Saldanha Bay," said Kahla.

Although most people expect the ore line to be moved to Ngqura, Kahla said Saldanha Bay was probably ideally suited because the manganese ore came from the Northern Cape, and Saldanha Bay was closer.

Kahla said the shipping of containers could replace the shipping of manganese ore in Port Elizabeth.

Transnet is working with the industry to increase manganese exports to 12 million tons a year by 2012.

The Northern Cape to Saldanha Bay export line is well-established, as it handles the iron ore line. At present, 47 million tons of iron ore are exported a year.

Source http://www.busrep.co.za

News sponsored by West Coast Office National for all your printing & stationery needs.www.pencil.co.za