Australian mining and construction machinery imports have fallen $351m per month since the December 2008 high of $456m to June 2009, according to the Skelton Sherborne Shipping Index.
Compiled every month, the Skelton Sherborne Shipping Index indicates the state of the mining and construction industries by way of the import activity into Australia.
According to the Index, there is virtually no Australian manufacturing of this equipment any longer.
“I don’t think the industry has ever seen such a drastic downturn in such a short space of time. Opinions are differing between our customers as to whether or not the market has bottomed however increasing commodity prices suggest demand should soon follow in the mining sector and with it increased need for equipment,” said Skelton Sherborne director, Brad Skelton.
“Construction equipment volumes look much more doubtful as many of our customers already large inventories on hand or idle equipment. Federal Government infrastructure funding seems to have had no discernable positive impact.”
The equipment types included in the index are new and used. These include: bulldozers, dump trucks, graders, mobile cranes, tracked cranes, excavators and draglines >12t, excavators < 12t, scrapers, wheeled dozers, wheel loaders, tracked loaders, crushers, screeners, compactors, tree fellers and harvesters, bitumen mixing plants/machines, road making/paving and other public works equipment, other earthmoving machines.