How to finish off manufacturing: become the world’s biggest gas exporter


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Did you know Australia has now over taken Qatar to be the largest exporter of natural gas in the world? But, thanks to private profiteering and government bungling, this seeming triumph comes at the risk of further diminishing manufacturing industry in NSW and Victoria.


It’s yet another example of naive economic reformers stuffing things up because real-world markets don’t work the way they do in textbooks.


Last week Dow Chemical announced it would close its Melbourne manufacturing plant due, in part, to high gas prices. This came after RemaPak, a Sydney-based producer of polystyrene coffee cups, and Claypave, a Queensland-based brick and paving manufacturer, went belly-up citing rising gas prices as an important contributing factor.


Why haven’t suppliers cut their prices? Because their pricing power means they don’t have to if they don’t want to.

Why haven’t suppliers cut their prices? Because their pricing power means they don’t have to if they don’t want to.


“Many other manufacturers are close to making critical decisions on their future operations,” according to Australian Competition and Consumer Commission boss Rod Sims. “If wholesale gas prices do not [come down], it is just a matter of time before they follow Dow, RemaPak and Claypave.”


Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sbsnews-topstories/~3/2io1UarGQjc/a-breakthrough-and-funding-pledge-for-one-of-australia-s-most-common-cancers

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