Daniel Mercer

Yeah, and I think you see this in the early stages when we saw ride-sharing companies entering the Australian market.

There has been anger at different times when surge pricing was used.

Even if it is an efficient way of allocating resources, people get angry if they feel like they're being ripped off.

I want to talk about another...

pricing dispute that affects your part of the world, and this is BHP, the big Australian.

It has been involved in a long-running standoff with China Mineral Resources Group over the way that iron ore is priced.

Now, this is obviously a key issue for BHP, but also for our other big iron ore miners,

Rio Tinto and Fortescue, but also for the Australian budget because the revenue from iron ore is obviously so important to the budget bottom line.

We know a deal has been struck and that pricing structure should now be in place until June 2027.

But this really was a geopolitical issue, wasn't it, about how much power did China as a buyer of Australian iron ore have to set what price they were buying that iron ore at?

How much attention is it received in your part of the world and what do you make of this deal?

And just explaining to people, the spot means the price fluctuates, as opposed to longer-term contracts where you're locking it in.

The spot price means that it is fluctuating.

It's very volatile.

And if it's on the way up, then they're capturing that upside.

But if you start to see the spot price fall, then you might get caught short.

I think you're right.

I mean, we don't know the full details of this deal.

The concern, of course, was that BHP potentially was going to lose this battle and you would have the price being set by the buyer and that that would have endangered the big profits that BHP has enjoyed and obviously would have put more pressure on Fortescue and Rio Tinto who've struck their own deals.

It appears they at least haven't lost, right?