Dryblower on the big event, the start of the next great currency shift (March 31)

MOANING gold bugs made the most noise at this year's Mines and Money conference in Hong Kong. While Dryblower was listening to their grumbles, he was also looking at another market that might create a bigger problem for all Australian miners - the currency market.

Dryblower suggested that too few people recognised the importance of currency changes, while pointing out the drop in the gold price which coincided with a rise in the Australian dollar.

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Dryblower on flaws in the iron ore market-flooding strategy (October 27)

DOES flooding a market make sense? That's a question which kept Dryblower awake as Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton expand iron ore production despite a falling price, and while most observers are unsure there are at least three people who think it's a daft strategy.

The three to speak out against flooding the iron ore market was the Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett, Citi director of metals and mining research Clarke Wilkins, and Dryblower himself.

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Dryblower on the risks which still lie ahead for Rio Tinto (August 4)

Diggers & Dealers was underway in Kalgoorlie, but Dryblower was more interested in what was going on at the top end of the industry where the future of Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton appeared to be diverging.

In what looked to be a management case study for business schools sometime in the next few years, Dryblower noted that BHP Billiton was busy concentrating its activities in economically (and politically safe) countries while Rio Tinto pursued potentially fatter profits in riskier destinations.

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Dryblower on weird events in Indonesia's mining industry (January 13)

Dryblower took a look at the Indonesian export ban, which had been considered as a "furphy" in the lead-up.

Dryblower didn't know whether Bahasa Indonesia, the official language of Indonesia, had a furphy equivalent, but the signals coming out of Jakarta at the time were confusing because it seemed that either the government was determined to enforce its ore export ban, or potentially enforce parts of it, or even shelve it for a later day.

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Dryblower takes a gold reality check (November 3)

Last month, Dryblower warned that the pressure on the price was likely to get worse before it got better.

He questioned how low gold could go after the yellow metal fell through the $US1200 an ounce mark in late October.

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