The Australian mining company, Fortescue Metals, is a company whose economic standing has fluctuated greatly within the last decade of its lifetime. This mining company is one that mines only for iron-ore, a commodity used to produce steel, which is very bountiful in Australia. Fortescue Metals is the world’s 4th largest exporter of iron-ore and is one of many iron-ore mining companies based in Australia. Their main competitors in Australia include Vale SA, Rio Tinto PLC, and BHP Billiton Ltd. (Hoyle)
Over the span of its existence Fortescue Metals has accumulated a large amount of debt, though they are making strong efforts towards enabling their company to run effectively enough to accumulate as little debt as possible in future years along with efforts to pay off the debt. Their net debt in September of 2015 was $6.6 billion, while may be more
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This purchase was an attempt at company growth by Fortescue Metals to help ensure that it can stay ahead of its competitors. With this land they built a large network of landholdings with power and water infrastructure along with port and railway facilities for the region(Hoyle). This new region and new facilities for production allowed their company to export more iron-ore more effectively and faster than before. With more facilities there were a larger number of mines outputting iron-ore for Fortescue Metals. Along with skyrocketing production, the increased amount of facilities Fortescue could now send and export steel from more convenient locations. All of these advancements would have caused a shift in the supply cure towards the left. The specific determinants of supply changing in this situation to cause this shift would have been an increase in the productivity of this company. In situations like this the company will have an easier time meeting the demand for its product, or in this case