Feedback, page-30

Mars,

Definitely the lighter shade of dark grey. The general feel around the place is that the worst is over, how long the bottom will be set in I don't know.

It's interesting that the benefactors of it all don't seem to be the surviving mining services companies but the labour hire companies. I believe the next part of cost savings for the majors is the re-hiring of labour through the labour hire groups. The hired contractor will on a lot less wages and conditions than the permanents before them were on (eg machinery operators that will now be on a flat rate and that have to pay their own super, leave, insurances etc and when there is machinery unit downtime through services etc they will be sent off-lease to wait by the phone for when they are needed agian). The labour hire company charges a margin on top of the hire rate and the company gets cheap, flexible labour.

I suspect Capex spending will still be subdued for a while yet but.

Warrigals