Global Business and Strategic Concepts for Australias Minerals - Case Study Example

?Australia’s Minerals: Global Business and Strategic Concepts Table of Content Australia’s Minerals: Global Business and Strategic Concepts Executive Summary Minerals form significant part of the Australia’s economy since it defines the country’s primary industries. Historically, minerals and mining have been booming thereby leading to intense immigration into Australia. Other than its economic benefits, mining also has diverse environmental effects to the country among other parts of the globe (Baranova, Knight, and Milligan, 2011; Pg. 132). Nonetheless, Australia has been a leading producer of mineral globally. It has sense been known to producing nearly 19 minerals that are associated to nearly 400 operating mines. Australia must take mining serious since it is the country’s economic backbone (Wild, and HAN, 2003; Pg. 17). Nearly all the states in the Australia have minerals. Despite the availability of several minerals, this essay aims at addressing the economic effects of coal as one of the Australia’s mineral (Cavusgil, Knight, and Riesenberger, 2008; Pg. 102). Such effects are to be analyzed domestically and internationally. It is worth noting that minerals form nearly 7 percent of the Australia’s GDP. Notably, according to the Australia’s bureau of statistics, the mining industries have directly employed over 263 thousand people. Other than the domestic advantages, Australia’s minerals are also exported (Beattie, 2002). Some of the mineral exported from Australia include oil and gas that were exported in the year 2011 and 2012 at a tune of $164 billion (Daniels, Radebaugh, and Sullivan, 2009). These figures accounted for nearly 52 percent of the Australia’s total exports. The same translated to nearly 62 percent of the merchandise exports (Villas-Bo?AS, and Beinhoff, 2002). It worth noting that Australian market specifically it mining industries usually enjoys free global economies including free global markets where they export their products in large scale (Haldar, 2013). Some of the major international markets for the Australia’s mineral products include Japan, India, South Korea, and China. According to the international ranking, Australia is usually considered as the top global mineral producer and it has the largest inventory resources that form the fundamental mineral commodities (Mintzberg and Lampel, 2009; Pg. 92). However, it does not lead in the production of all mineral commodities; therefore, there are opportunities in mineral that it produces in small scale particularly when it raises it scale of production on the same. Coal is among lowly exploited mineral by Australia; hence, it is vital to determine whether how Australia can raise its game in the production of coal towards boosting its domestic and international markets on the same product. In the Australia’s list of major export categories, Coal among other minerals including aluminum and copper fall fifth (Mintzberg and Lampel, 2005). Coal is used for different purposes; therefore, to boost its sales, Australia needs to intensify its marketing research on coal and its demand with different global economies towards increasing its sales in these countries. Introduction Mineral coal is a natural resource that only needs proper and effective equipment and labor to exploit effectively. Notably, Australia has an intense comparative advantage in the mineral commodities production. This emanates from its rich and diverse endowment of minerals as well as high quality and scaled regional information geoscience (Mintzberg and Lampel, 2009; Pg. 281). The intense understanding of geoscience reduces risks of exploitation of mineral in Australia. Additionally, Australian mineral exploiting industries are also enjoying advance exploration techniques that ensure that maximum exploitation. They also have advance mining and processing technologies with highly skilled labor that has intensive experience (De Wit and Meyer, 2010; Pg. 133). Additionally, the mineral exploration physical conditions are favorable and low population densities that open nearly every mineral potential field for exploration (Daniels, Radebaugh, and Sullivan, 2009). These factors create able room for the application of the modern mining techniques and technologies with low social and environmental risks. Therefore, Australian government should apply these techniques in intensifying exploration coal towards intensifying it into the global mineral markets (Baranova, Knight, and Milligan, 2011; Pg. 132). The major emerging world’s economies including India and China will require mineral products; therefore, exploration of alternative or increased exploitation of lowly explored and exported minerals will provide additional markets for Australia into the global level (Drucker, 1985). Providing or increased exploration of mineral that are lowly exploited will help in reducing the risks of running out of the minerals that are intensively explored (Mintzberg and Lampel, 2009; Pg. 111). Additionally, despite Australia’s intensive dependency on the mineral products as its main foreign exchange product, it should note that there are guarantees that these resources will remain available for continued exploration. The increasingly competitive and globalized commodity market, Australia must use under exploited minerals as their alternative mineral deposits that will equally offer alternative investment returns onto the economic market (Cavusgil, Knight, and Riesenberger, 2008; Pg. 81). Despite the undermining of the coals by Australia mining industries, they must acknowledge that they may increase the quality and profitability of this mineral coal so that it may attract the same market as other leading minerals (Rugman and Collinson, 2009; Pg. 121). Moreover, currently there are numerous global environmental concerns on mining of minerals; the Australian government may invest on a research that will help in unveiling alternative mining techniques especially in regards to coals that will make it not to have intense opposition for environmentalists (Daniels, Radebaugh, and Sullivan, 2009). Additionally, the government should curb political criticism that may emerge in any of the processes or process stages that involving mining, processing, and marketing of coal. With the same notion, coal should be pushed into being ranked among other multination mineral companies in terms of investment return (Mulligan, 1900). Working on these factors will widen the market of coal domestically and internationally. Coal Coal is an organic rock that is composed largely with carbon elements combines with hydrogen and oxygen. Other minerals that may be present in coal include sulphur and nitrogen among others. These additional elements in coal are usually impurities. Pure coal mineral is only made of carbon elements that make its combustible in air to produce carbon dioxide (Drucker, 1985). While being combusted, coal usually produces a lot of heat; thus, it usually being used as source of heat in industrial processes. Coal has other industrial uses including purification of certain industrial products. Therefore, the Australian government should identify whether it will extract and sell coal as raw material for other industrial purification or as a fine product for industrial processes (Morrison, 2009). Identification of type or form to which coal is to be sold is very vital since it will define the nature of marketing and market research involving sales of mineral coal. It should be also noted that coal is also classified according to the degree of alteration that it has been subjected to change its quality (Baranova, Knight, and Milligan, 2011; Pg. 211). The alteration usually leads to the formation of different types of coals. Coal specifically the black coal is used as electricity power source. It is also used in steaming processes. The year 2008, Australia generated its 77 percent electric supply from coal and the same was generated mainly from coal fired powered. Additionally, coal is used for making coke. The coking coal are usually heated in the absence of air to produce coke and gases mainly ash and carbon (De Wit and Meyer, 2010; Pg. 172). A high quality coke is usually blasted in a furnace to produce iron (Lynch, 2009; Pg. 116). Numerous organic chemicals such as tars and feedstock that are used to make plastics are usually prepared as by products gas and coke produced from heating coal in dry air. Therefore, with targeting of the companies making these products among other related products as by products, Australia may increase its market for coal both locally and internationally. Mining Coal in Australia is mined at La Trobe Valley that has mines including Loy Yang, Hazelwood, and Yallourn. These mines extract mainly brown coal. The mining process utilized in these mines is the giant bucket wheel excavators (Sawyer and Gomez, 2012). This mode of mining is perfect since is good in large extractions of minerals and miners should only improve on them for maximum exploration. Just like other minerals, coal is usually mined in all the Australian states (Daniels, Radebaugh, and Sullivan, 2009). On the international standing, Australia exports 54 percent of all its mined coal. Most of these exports are directed to eastern Asia. Mining Regulation The mining regulation in the Australia is usually controlled through state and territory Australian government agencies (Morrison, 2009). The agencies are responsible for health and safety legislation and regulations that are relevant to the mining industries (Rumley, 2001). Additionally, it is usually the role of the state department of mines to guarantee exploration and mining tenements as well as controlling and collecting mining loyalties or the loyalty payments from the mine companies (Drucker, 1985). Therefore, to increase the quality, the mines government department and the assigned agencies must ensure that proper mining processes are undertaken and miners are treated to as the health and safety rules that have been laid down (Kawatra, and Natarajan, 2001; Pg. 71). Otherwise, the government will run loses when human rights agencies among other agencies bring down the mining operations on the claims of human right issues among other issues related to human health and safety. Technologies Mining processes have experience diverse improvement in technology among other mining techniques. However, the government should still encourage additional research work on other technologies that would further improve mining techniques (Goffin and Mitchell, 2005). With efficient and effective mining techniques, large quantities and high quality mineral will be produced and this will ensure that these minerals fetch high prices with the domestic and international markets. Sustainability of Mineral Mining in Australia Numerous factors must be analyzed to understand and determine the sustainability of mineral mining in Australia. The most fundamental aspects include the prospected availability of the minerals, geological aspects, market, labor, and techniques and technologies. The geological study of the continued availability of minerals in Australia project that Australia still has numerous mineral to exploit towards maintaining its economy (Daniels, Radebaugh, and Sullivan, 2009). However, Australia should balance on how it mines its known minerals and on the other hand exploit or research on other minerals among other natural resources that may be available within their lands (Jergensen, 1999). Continued excessive exploration of the vital minerals, will lead to complete depletion and this will affect the Australia’s economy immensely Moon, Whateley, and Evans, 2009; Pg. 21). Therefore, it would be advisable if Australian government to research for the market or create market for the same minor minerals so they may expand on their market (Lynch, 2009). Notably, once the minerals that are currently being exploited are exploited to the standard of the major ones, the over exploration of the major ones will reduce thereby balancing the availability and exploration of the minerals (Goffin and Mitchell, 2005). On the other hand, with the availability of the mineral resources, Australia currently has advance mining technologies that currently help them in exploiting the mineral mines. Nonetheless, it would be advisable if it conduct further research on how to introduce more efficient and effective mining technology and technological equipment (Cavusgil, Knight, and Riesenberger, 2008; Pg. 281). These advancements will ensure quantity and quality mining; thus, supplying their customers in a timely and quantitative manner. Australia’s geological structure makes it convenient for mineral exploitation; therefore, if the mineral are available, the terrain will support exploration. Additionally, major mine fields have low population densities that leaves the geological endowment and mineral resources open for exploration (De Wit and Meyer, 2010; Pg. 162). Moreover, the nature of population makes the mines free from other competitive use. However, the government should allocate some open areas to relocate people whenever they are found to occupy mine areas. Such lands should be of equal value as those that persons are being reallocated. Australia has open market to take its mineral products (Baranova, Knight, and Milligan, 2011; Pg. 182). Notably, there are many emerging economies that will surely need mineral in developing some of their structures. For instance, China and India are some of the Asian society that is considered as emerging economies. Australia should target these markets among other for its mine products (Johnson, Whittington and Scholes, 2011). It should be noted that there are numerous emerging markets. In fact, there more the emerging markets the more the demands of minerals and the higher the market for Australian minerals (Wilson, 1993). Nonetheless, Australia should search for other markets to sell its mineral products. Sustainable Production and Consumption The sustainable production and consumption (SP&C) is a fundamental concept that was initiated in 1992 at Rio Earth summit. This concept describes the production and use services and goods that meet the principle human needs towards leading to a quality life (Cavusgil, Knight, and Riesenberger, 2008; Pg. 193). This concept is only achieved through minimizing the application and usage of the natural resources; therefore, it is apparent from the summit that emission of toxic materials from pollutants and waste products over a given lifecycle must never jeopardize the future generation’s needs (Daniels, Radebaugh, and Sullivan, 2009). Therefore, for the Australian government to produce mineral products that are supported and in accordance with the international regulations it must abide by United Nations council on the terms and principles for sustainable development (UNCSD) (Johnson, Whittington and Scholes, 2011). Some of the terms and conditions that Australian government is expected to follow include: 1. Must abide by the pricing reforms for internalization of environmental costs 2. Follow the green public procurement requirements and policies 3. Allowing extension of producers’ responsibilities on the lifecycle environmental effects 4. Reinforce eco labeling 5. Follow all the environmental processes and criteria in the production and processing processes 6. Increase efficient design in production and processing 7. Increase lifespan and durability of goods 8. Design for reuse and recycle 9. Allow more and adverse sustainable consumption of the product through product efficiency and advertising The above recommendations are part of the emerging responsibilities required for the eco efficiency and lifecycle partnership expected between industrial sectors. The international organizations are usually concerned with the maintenance of the eco system during resource production and processing. Notably, mining is attached or linked to the environment directly (Cavusgil, Knight, and Riesenberger, 2008; Pg. 162). Therefore, it would be appropriate for Australian government to adapt to such policies and requirements in the producing and processing mineral products. It will be much easier and effective for the Australian government to operate its mines within these basic eco regulation measures than to operate without any concerns (Indicator of Sustainability for Mineral Extraction Industry at el., 2005; Pg. 137). For instance, not caring for the worker at the mine will lead to series of strikes and court cases that will affect the mineral production; thus, the returns obtained from these mines. Additionally, following the regulation will ensure that the mining practices never destroy the environment especially the vegetation (Indian Mineral Congress, Sinha, and Singh, 2005). Forests are the main homes for the wildlife and minerals’ mine dusts usually destroy vegetation at alarming rates (De Wit and Meyer, 2010; Pg. 162). This will translate to the destruction of wildlife. Such acts will be expensive for the government since the tourism sectors will be equally shattered (Indicator of Sustainability for Mineral Extraction Industry at el., 2005; Pg. 162). Moreover, many people will lose their jobs thereby affecting the economy of the country. Other modes of conserving the environment in relation to the mining activities are the nature of the land after the mining process. The government must ensure that all the mined lands are filled appropriately; otherwise, these lands may be dangerous places for the persons living around such areas (Kawatra, and Natarajan, 2001; Pg. 811). Hence, if such become highly harmful than can be controlled, the same may affect mining processes or activities; thus, affective the economy. For instance the courts may order the closure of mining activities in cases were such mining activities are considered to be interfering with citizens’ right to life (Stephenson EMF Consultants, 1996; Pg. 44). Therefore, for productive, efficient, and sustainable mining activities, all the involved stakeholders must play their roles towards adhering to all set requirements. 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