BHP Meets China, Australia Declines

123jump.com Staff
23 Nov, 2007
New York City

BHP Billiton chief Marius Kloppers to meet China Iron and Steel Association officials in Beijing today. Qantas and Tiger Airways are sparring over the services to Alice Springs. Westpac severs ties with Virgin Money. Woodside Petroleum Ltd started A$12 billion ($11 billion) construction of Pluto liquefied natural gas project.

[R]5:00AM New York, 9:00PM Sydney - The Australia index fell by 0.1% as banking stocks traded lower.[/R]

ASX 200 index edged lower by 0.1% or 4.10 to close at 6,330.20. Westpac declined 1.5% and National Australia Bank slid 1.3%.

BHP Billiton chief executive Marius Kloppers is expected to meet officials from the China Iron and Steel Association in Beijing today, amid continued Chinese concerns that a $400 billion merged BHP and Rio would wield too much power over international iron ore prices.

He has been on the road for two weeks meeting investors and customers to persuade them of the merits of his $150 billion offer for Rio Tinto.


A storm is brewing between Australia''s main airline Qantas and its newest rival Tiger Airways over services to Alice Springs. Tiger Airways, which celebrated its first domestic flights today was complaining that Qantas was preventing it from starting flights to the desert centre.

The budget airline said Qantas would not provide it any ground-handling services at Alice Springs Airport at any price, despite Tiger offering to rearrange its flight schedule.

Tiger Airways planned to start flying from Melbourne to Alice Springs three times a week from December 1st. Tiger Airways chief executive Tony Davis said today the airline would now have to wait until March 1st next year to fly to Alice Springs. Several thousand passengers would have their fares refunded or their trips delayed.

Westpac severed its five-year partnership with Virgin Money to provide Virgin branded credit cards. Under the agreement, Westpac issued Virgin branded credit cards and provided card infrastructure and credit management. The current agreement between Westpac and Virgin Money will end in 2008.

Westpac announced that it would now negotiate with Virgin Money the purchase of the Virgin credit card book from Westpac. Virgin Money card customers are not affected and their cards will continue to operate normally. Westpac first began issuing Virgin branded low rate, no annual fee cards in 2003, after winning a selection process.

Lafayette Mining Ltd, which owns a copper mine in the Philippines announced today that its negotiations with a major potential investor to pay off debt were continuing, and the outcome was now uncertain.

The company said the investor has until November 30 to exercise an option to pay off the debt. Lafayette is valued at A$17.7 million ($15.4 million) and is developing the Rapu Rapu mine as the government encourages overseas investment in the industry.

Woodside Petroleum Ltd announced that it had started construction of the A$12 billion ($11 billion) Pluto liquefied natural gas project and is studying an expansion. Woodside said site preparation work have been underway since January, while preparation works for the gas processing plant on the Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia started last month.

The first phase of the Pluto project will produce about 4.3 million metric tons a year of LNG, from a plant capacity of 4.8 million tons.

LNG shipments are due to start to customers Tokyo Gas Co. and Kansai Electric Power Co. in late 2010. Pluto is one of only two LNG projects approved in the past two years amid a surge in construction costs.

Of the ASX 200 index shares, Timbercorp Limited led the gainers with a rise of 8% followed by increases in Murchison Metals by 6.4%, in ABC Learning by 6%, in CSL Limited by 4.4%, and in Macarthur Coal by 4.3%.

Of the ASX 200 index stocks JB Hi-fi Limited led the decliners with a fall of 3.3% followed by losses in Perilya Limited of 3.3%, AED Oil by 4.1%, in St George Bank by 4.2%, and 7.7% in AWB Limited.

In the other stocks, BHP Billiton declined by 0.4% and Rio Tinto was lower at 0.3%. In the energy sector Woodside was up 1.5%, Santos was higher at 1.2%, and Oil Search rose by 0.2%.

In the gold sector Newcrest Mining added 0.5% and Lihir put on 0.8%. In other banking stocks the Commonwealth Bank of Australia was down 1.2% and the Australia and New Zealand Bank shed 1%.

The retail sector was mixed with Woolworths trading higher 0.1%, Harvey Norman gained 0.2% and Wesfarmers shed 1%. Media stocks were mixed Publishing and Broadcasting was up 0.5%, Fairfax added 0.6% and News Corp was lower at 0.4%.

Australian real estate investment trust, Macquarie Country Wide Trust, added 2.9% after indicating that it will build a A$64 million ($56 million) shopping center in Singleton, in the Australian state of New South Wales.

Mirabela Nickel Ltd, fell 1.8% after boosting its forecast for annual production at the site by 35% and reported a 30% increase in the in-pit resource. Mirabela will produce more than 25,000 metric tons of nickel concentrate a year by mid-2009, it said in a statement to the exchange.

Australia''s biggest property and casualty insurer, QBE Insurance Group Ltd gained 2.9% after UBS raised the it to ``buy'''' from ``neutral''''.