4 of bly's biggest customers

Interesting backpage article in the weekend AFR titled "four big miners, one song sheet", which reports the big 4 have all reported this week and all essentially saying the same thing as far as outlook is concerned:

Xstrata boss Mick Davis was reported as saying:

"The full implications of the downturn havent yet fully played out, its clear they will have a profound and long lastng effects - such as the extent to which it exacerbated pre-existing supply constraint.

Prior to the crisis the mining industry was already struggling to maintain or increase production in the face of declining grades, unplanned outages at ageing operations and more stringent permitting requirements.

The mining industry's swinging cuts to expenditure on exploration, projects and infrastructure has delayed the onset of new capacity for at least 18 to 24 months and means the supply side will fall further behind in its ability to supply even modest increases in future demand".

Xstrata, along with BHP, Rio & Vale are the big four referred to, all saying the same thing. All 4 are on BLY's list of large customer base. I think its pretty clear what they, and presumably many other mining players, will be doing for the next couple of years.

I'll let you draw your own conclusions about what this means for demand for BLY's products and services...

Cheers, Sharks.