Daniel Mercer

We don't know how big a win this might be, but there was a lot of skin.

Maybe a draw at this point, exactly.

But you can't imagine that there won't be continued pressure to come up to some sort of agreement.

And again, there are, as you correctly point out,

With other commodities, there are longer-term contracts that are put into place to shore up supply for an extended period.

The iron ore business, as I understand it, is starting to change shape.

Australia's been very dominant with competition from Brazil, but you're looking at China has invested a lot of money looking to shore up its own supplies of iron ore coming out of Africa, for example.

And because they don't want to be so reliant on Australian iron ore because they don't think that gives them a particularly strong position.

And I think as you see more competition potentially come online, that might change the negotiating position for BHP.

And maybe you will see attempts once again of changing the structure of how these payments work.

It's classic cartel behavior, isn't it?

You put all the buyers together in order to leverage that size against the person you're trying to get the supply from.

Yeah, I think that's right, but at least for this stage BHP does not appear to have lost this battle, but yeah, we'll see how this plays out in the future and it is extraordinary how insatiable the demand has been up until now, but as you say, you would think

given the population decline, that maybe that is coming to an end.

That is it for today's episode of ABC Business Daily.

Tomorrow, Alan Coller joins me again for another Fuelcast to wrap up your week on the global energy crisis.

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Catch you next time, Dan.