Fortescue Metals Group chairman Andrew Forrest says the mining industry will learn from the “hard lessons” endured during the resources boom and allocate capital more responsibly in the future.
Referring to the findings of a PwC report released on Tuesday, Mr Forrest admitted the industry had recently endured tough conditions, including billions of dollars in write-downs, due to the decisions it made during the boom.
“Our efficiency of allocated capital has been called in to question by those who invest in our industries … and we have been marked down as we have been seen to really charge for supply quantity over supply value maximisation,” he told the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies convention in Perth on Wednesday.
“We are now facing, I believe, a future that puts to rest what I believe is the negative transition path of the dominant current political and media narrative that the industry somehow is dying. “I want to declare loudly and clearly that the mining industry is neither dead nor in a negative transition and that we do learn from our lessons.
“And that when we look back on the last two or three years and we look back on the last 10 or 20 years, chief executives amongst us all, chairmen amongst us all will take on this lesson and will allocate capital responsibly.”
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