PAUL RAFTERY

The control room of a modern mining organisation is not dissimilar to that of an energy trading operation. What has distinguished the Australian mining sector from so many of its competitors is the level and sophistication of its centralised and automated mining sector. Romantically, many of us think it was the harshness and..... Continue reading...

By nearly any measure Australia is a preferred country to live in. At this time, Covid-19 is impacting on many countries near and far. We now need to be generous in how we see the world. What we do now will be remembered for decades to come. This should not be a motivator but is important that we understand we have an opportunity to act in non-partisan way. Many of Australia’s future trading partners are developing countries today -they are in Asia, Africa and South America. We need to assist to create jobs and refinance their economies. First, we cannot let our fellow human beings stave but we must do more much more than this. Second, we need to look beyond their immediate needs and to their future. To use the metaphor, we need to teach them to fish and in mostly this means we need to ensure they speak English. If we can trade with these countries and show them the virtues of our political system, we can develop partnerships which will work through the generations. We need to focus on

Some weeks ago, I foreshadowed, that the energy majors would need to impair their gas assets, regrettably it is coming to pass. Led by BP, followed by Shell and is now being considered by Oil Search, Santos, Origin energy and Woodside. This decision reflects a view that what we’re seeing is a reduction in the oil price is not merely a cyclicals shock associated with Covid 19. The issue would appear to be we may have seen peak oil demand as opposed to peak oil supply. Planning numbers of USD 75 – 70 a barrel for Brent oil are being reduced to USD $60 (but not USD 35 of the bottom of Covid 19). In the case of Shell, much of this investment is in Australia including its acquisition of the assets of BG. Earlier this year Shell announced publicly its change in investment policy towards renewable energy assets. Amidst all the challenges the executives of big oil are to be congratulated for their openness and frankness on complying with the accounting policies. This decision no doubt will hav

Many countries have learned painful lessons as a result of international trade going into disarray because of Covid 19. Every country will see the issues from its own point of view. International trade is based on the idea that some countries do some things better than others and by buying and selling to each other is more to go around. This idea of specialisation was complemented with...... Continue reading ...  

At Projects RH, our core business is we connect projects & money. One of the ways we do that is by acting as an internal resource to process manage a major change in the business.  We understand the challenges of ..... Continue reading ....