Commodity price slump hits Australian project pipeline

PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The fall in commodity prices has resulted in a 4.6% decrease in the recorded value of investment projects in Australia, advisory firm Deloitte Access Economics reported on Thursday.

In its latest Investment Monitor, Deloitte noted that the total value of projects in its database had declined to A$776.9-billion during the three months to December.

The Investment Monitor contains the details of more than 1 000 Australian projects valued at A$20-million or more.

The value of definite projects in the database, those classified as under construction or committed, decreased by about A$27-billion, or 6.7%, over the quarter. This took the value of definite projects to the lowest level in over four years.

The value of planned projects in the database, those classified as under consideration or possible, contracted by A$10.3-billion during the December quarter, with Deloitte saying that the decrease contributed towards the pipeline falling A$37-billion below the value recorded this time last year.

“Lower world commodity prices are continuing to deliver an unwelcome income shock to the Australian economy. That is compounding the effects of the drop-off in mining-related engineering project activity, and the expected growth in mining output is lower than expected,” said Deloitte Access Economics partner and Investment Monitor author Stephen Smith.

He added that Australian business investment continued to slide as projects reached the end of construction and as early-stage projects were either cancelled or delayed.

“Total private construction work is down markedly on last year and the falls will worsen in the next year or two. Indeed, engineering construction has contracted in 10 of the last 11 quarters, and Deloitte Access Economics is expecting this phase to continue until about 2017/18.”

Smith noted that on the positive side, dollar dependent and interest rate sensitive sectors were improving. 

Tourism and international education were benefiting from the fall in the Australian dollar, while low interest rates were boosting the finance sector, and housing construction and retail remained relatively strong, despite sentiment in the housing sector waning somewhat.

New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania were benefiting from low interest rates and a fall in the Australian dollar, while Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory were experiencing the effects of a dissipating resources boom.

Smith said that many of Australia’s good news stories were currently centred in New South Wales, where the value of planned and definite projects over the last 12 months increased by almost 18%, while, in contrast, the value of projects in Queensland had fallen by more than 30%.