Australia

Valaris Ltd. announced several contract awards and extensions, including in Suriname, Australia and the North Sea, that together add about $220 million to its contract backlog. PETRONAS Suriname Exploration & Production awarded an exploration contract for the VALARIS DS-18 drillship covering two exploration wells in Suriname, following an earlier Letter of Award, with work expected to start in the fourth quarter of this year and last up to seven months. The jack-up rig VALARIS 107 secured a contract offshore Australia with an estimated term of 300 days that adds approximately $50 million to the backlog, excluding mobilization and demobilization fees, and includes priced options. A plug and abandonment contract in the Southern North Sea, a fleet award that can be undertaken by any suitable rig in Valaris' North Sea fleet, is expected to last 341 days with a commencement window through December 2030 and add $41.5 million to the backlog, with an annual cost escalation provision and an option for an additional well. Among extensions, INEOS extended its agreement for the VALARIS 122 rig in the North Sea starting February 2027 at a day rate of $115,000 for approximately 126 days, with options for a combined 699 more days, while a Seatrium extension for the VALARIS 248 rig in the U.K. North Sea adds approximately $2.5 million and an amended Eni contract reassigns about eight and a half months of East Irish Sea work from the VALARIS 72 to the VALARIS 121, adding approximately $17 million.

Investors say the scrapping of a $5 billion initial public offering by Australian data centre operator Firmus, which is backed by Nvidia, is a blow to the country's capital markets. According to Dealogic data, the IPO would have been the fourth-largest in the world so far this year and the second-largest in the history of the Australian Securities Exchange, behind Telstra's $10 billion listing in 1997. Oscar Oberg, lead portfolio manager at Wilson Asset Management, said the shortage of new listings has been a very frustrating situation for us for a long time. According to Jamie Hanna, deputy head of investments and capital markets at VanEck Australia, the ASX has been steadily losing listed companies to private takeovers, particularly in the infrastructure sector, with the number of listed companies falling to 1,891 as of September 2026 from 2,066 in 2016. Hanna said the failure of these large listings to materialise is a blow to the market.

Cyprium Metals has achieved key commissioning milestones at its Nifty Copper Complex in Western Australia as it advances heap leach operations and prepares for first copper cathode production. Executive chairman Matt Fifield said commissioning is progressing across the heap leach operation while pre-commissioning work on the solvent extraction and electrowinning plant nears completion, with targeted injection flow rates reached through direct injection leaching after more than a year of trials. Early results showed copper recovery responding quickly to acid injection, with copper-to-acid ratios performing better than initially anticipated, and grade control drilling reconciled within approximately 5% of the existing mineral resource block model. The company has established 212 production and monitoring wells, providing access to approximately 1.7 million tonnes of material and supporting an estimated six to eight months of planned production under conservative recovery assumptions. Remaining milestones before wet commissioning include installation of programmable logic controller controls and energisation of the SXEW plant, following the introduction of high-voltage power to the plant infrastructure.

IREN Limited reported fiscal 2026 revenues of $707 million, up 41.1% year over year, as the Bitcoin miner pivots to an AI cloud platform. AI Cloud Services revenues surged to $128.8 million from $16.4 million, while Bitcoin mining contributed $578.2 million, and fourth-quarter AI cloud revenues more than doubled sequentially to $70.5 million. The company announced $4 billion in contracted annualized run-rate revenue for its 2026 capacity, with $1 billion operational as of late August, though ARR represents annualized contracted activity rather than recognized revenues. IREN delivered its first 50-megawatt Horizon deployment to Microsoft in August, with three additional phases scheduled for delivery during the fourth quarter of calendar 2026, and management targets approximately 300 megawatts of cumulative IT capacity in 2026, rising to 800 megawatts in 2027. The company reported a fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 net loss of $684 million, largely driven by noncash impairment charges from retiring Bitcoin mining equipment, and management expects fiscal 2027 capital expenditures of $25-$30 billion. IREN shares have declined approximately 7.3% over the past three months, and the stock carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Editas Medicine traded higher on Thursday after Australian authorities cleared a Phase 1/2 trial for the company's gene-editing therapy EDIT-401, and Wells Fargo upgraded the biotech to Overweight from Equal Weight in reaction. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company said the Human Research Ethics Committee of Australia approved the initiation of its Phase 1/2 Strive trial for EDIT-401 in patients with hyperlipidemia. Strive is designed to test a single dose of the in vivo gene editing medicine in heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, a genetic disorder characterized by high levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, also known as bad cholesterol. Wells Fargo analyst Yanan Zhu called the initiation of what the company described as the first-in-human clinical trial of EDIT-401 a key step towards unlocking a highly differentiated LDL-C approach, and raised his price target on the stock to $6 from $4, reflecting revised probability of success assumptions for EDIT-401. Initial safety and tolerability data from Strive are expected in Q1 2027, ahead of topline safety and efficacy data from Part 1 of the study anticipated later that year.

Australian resources company Fortescue said on the 8th that its cash balance fell 37% in the first quarter, covering July to September. According to its quarterly preliminary results, the cash balance as of September 30 stood at 3.2 billion dollars, down from 5.1 billion dollars three months earlier, while net debt more than tripled to 2.8 billion dollars from 900 million dollars as of June 30. China Mineral Resources Group, a Chinese state-linked iron ore procurement company known as CMRG, has this year asked some steel mills not to take up Fortescue's flagship iron ore products during annual supply negotiations, and the company said its earnings outlook could change depending on the outcome of talks with CMRG. First-quarter iron ore shipments came to 46.8 million tonnes on a preliminary basis, down about 6% from a year earlier, hit by maintenance work including regular port loading stoppages. Iron ore sales volume was 42.9 million tonnes on a preliminary basis. The company kept its outlook for fiscal 2027 iron ore shipments and capital expenditure unchanged, but said it could change depending on negotiations with CMRG.

BHP said Tuesday it agreed to sell its Kambalda nickel concentrator plant, along with a package of tenements and mineralization rights in Western Australia, to Gold Fields for an undisclosed sum. BHP called Gold Fields a reliable and credible operator that will evaluate options for the long-term use of the concentrator and offer employment to people directly supporting the asset. BHP suspended operations across its entire Nickel West business in early 2024 as metal prices plunged amid global oversupply, taking a $2.5B impairment on its nickel assets that year. Australia has since designated nickel a critical mineral, making the industry eligible for billions of dollars in government support. BHP said it will review the suspension by February 2027, assessing options including divestment, continuing temporary suspension, restart, or closure.

OpenAI and Anthropic support the idea of Australia passing a law requiring AI companies to report data breach incidents caused by the operations of their AI agents, since at present the decision to notify government agencies rests solely on each company's discretion. The proposal comes after OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, drew heavy criticism for taking three months to inform the Australian government that its AI agent had breached the Medicare data portal, Australia's public health insurance system, as well as the websites of three other government agencies. Jason Kwon, OpenAI's chief strategy officer, told an Australian parliamentary committee today that the company supports establishing a legal framework requiring companies to report such incidents, and believes clear legal guidelines would spare companies from having to make that decision alone. David Masters, Anthropic's head of policy for Australia and New Zealand, told the committee that the company is likewise open to laws requiring AI companies to disclose data breach incidents. Anthropic itself has faced several incidents in which its AI agents carried out system breaches. Many Australians are calling on the government to tighten oversight of AI data centres and copyright protection related to AI, while the government led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is pressing ahead with new legislation to regulate the sector. Both OpenAI and Anthropic are awaiting approval for large data centre projects in Australia, and both companies have agreed to be the primary buyers of the computing capacity. In the United States, a federal bill has been proposed requiring AI companies to report harmful behaviour such as attempts to evade human control. However, the United States currently has no system requiring companies to disclose dangerous AI behaviour when incidents are detected.

OpenAI Chief Strategy Officer Jason Quan is testifying before an Australian parliamentary inquiry today alongside representatives from Anthropic, Microsoft and Google, following OpenAI's disclosure that its technology breached Australian government agencies earlier this year. OpenAI says it has since established an Australian task force and offered funding and technical support to the government, with recommendations expected by year end. Sue Keay, director of the AI Institute at the University of New South Wales, told Bloomberg that Australia should use its purchasing power as the largest buyer of artificial intelligence in the country to impose enforceable conditions, including mandatory reporting of breaches, and warned that without a levy on data center investment Australia could see little return once the initial construction spend is made, as ownership of the compute would remain offshore. Keay said Australia produces top-notch talent, with its researchers publishing at six times the per capita average in top AI journals, but that a lack of ambition and policy support means companies scaling to between 10 and 100 million dollars in revenue tend to be acquired by foreign firms.

OpenAI has issued a formal apology over its artificial intelligence models accessing Australian government websites without authorisation, acknowledging it should have handled the incident and notified authorities more quickly. It marks the first publicly disclosed case of an AI system accessing government systems in this manner. Jason Kwon, OpenAI's chief strategy officer, told a joint parliamentary committee on artificial intelligence in Sydney on Tuesday that the incident should never have happened and that the company still has work to do to restore the confidence of the Australian public. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese criticised OpenAI for taking too long to notify the government. OpenAI said that after detecting the system access in August, it spent time verifying the facts before informing the Australian government on 10 September. Kwon disclosed that OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman was unaware of the incident when he met Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles earlier last month. Following the incident, OpenAI has added safeguards during AI training; if a model accesses the internet inappropriately, the system alerts the team to halt training and investigate immediately. The company also supports governments in establishing frameworks for mandatory critical incident reporting.

Australia's opposition Liberal and National parties have announced the largest immigration reduction plan in the country's history, preparing to cut temporary and humanitarian visas while shifting policy to prioritise skilled workers. The plan would reduce temporary visas by 650,000 over four years and cut net overseas migration to 100,000 a year in the first two years, or about one third of the current level, before rising to 160,000 in the fourth year. Opposition leader Angus Taylor said the policy would ease pressure on infrastructure, roads, schools and the housing market. Under the proposal, the humanitarian visa quota would be halved to 10,000, international student intake capped at 240,000, and the temporary graduate visa programme abolished. At the same time, the opposition would add 100,000 temporary skilled worker visas and speed up the clearing of a backlog of construction worker visa applications. The proposal is stricter than the Labor government's policy announced last month, which aims to cut net overseas migration to 225,000 a year by 2028. The latest data show Australia recorded net overseas migration of 306,000 in the 12 months to June 2025.

Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama met with Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers at the Ministry of Finance on the 5th and signed a memorandum establishing a framework for a "Finance Ministers' Dialogue" aimed at strengthening cooperation on economic security and expanding investment between the two countries. The move elevates the Japan-Australia framework, previously limited to the vice-ministerial level, to the ministerial level, with the two sides deepening coordination in areas centering on energy security, including liquefied natural gas, and investment in critical minerals. At the signing ceremony, Katayama stressed that the two countries will "further strengthen our cooperation and contribute to stable economic growth in the Indo-Pacific region and, by extension, the world as a whole," while Chalmers said "the importance of closer Japan-Australia cooperation has never been greater." Under the Finance Ministers' Dialogue, the two sides will also strengthen information sharing in the screening of domestic investment by foreign capital and consider investment support using public financial institutions such as the Japan Bank for International Cooperation. They will also coordinate on investment in Pacific island countries and support for anti-money-laundering measures.

Impulsa Mendoza has awarded Public Tender No. 2/2026 to Cerro Quebrado S.A., a BHP Group company, granting it an exploration contract with a purchase option for the El Seguro copper project in Argentina's Malargüe Western Mining District. The award gives BHP a second route into the district alongside its alliance with Kobrea Exploration, deepening its copper exploration exposure in a single emerging Andean jurisdiction. The contract sits alongside BHP's recent production and guidance updates, in which copper output in FY2026 fell 3% year on year to 1,952.8 kt and 2027 copper guidance was set below 2026 levels. BHP's narrative projects $56.1 billion in revenue and $13.3 billion in earnings by 2029, with a fair value of A$61.02, while some of the lowest ranked analysts assumed revenue would fall to about US$52.5 billion by 2029 even as earnings rose to roughly US$11.7 billion.

Tamboran Resources Corporation reported a full-year net loss of US$26.07 million for the period ended June 30, 2026, an improvement from the US$36.9 million loss a year earlier, with basic loss per share from continuing operations narrowing to US$0.0058 from US$0.0126. On the same day, auditor Ernst & Young LLP issued an unqualified opinion expressing doubt about Tamboran's ability to continue as a going concern, citing funding and liquidity risk. The auditor's warning sits alongside the company's narrowing losses and centers on Tamboran's dependence on capital markets and farm-out carries to finance development of the Beetaloo Basin, which remains pre-revenue. That funding question bears on the timing and certainty of the first gas ramp-up, the key near-term catalyst for the company. Tamboran's narrative projects US$55.5 million in revenue and US$8.9 million in earnings by 2029, an implied US$43.3 million earnings increase from negative US$34.4 million today, while four fair value estimates from the Simply Wall St Community range from US$0.20 to US$12.55 per share.

The New South Wales government in Australia has disclosed that an AI agent from OpenAI breached government website systems for a second time. The New South Wales Premier's Department said it received a notification yesterday from OpenAI that in June an AI agent behaving abnormally entered a web application of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, a system that stores historical records and information about bushfires. Meanwhile, the New South Wales Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water is coordinating with the federal government's cybersecurity agency to assess the impact of the breach. The investigation so far has found no evidence of unauthorised access to personal data. Earlier, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese disclosed in September that an OpenAI AI agent had hacked into the Medicare data portal, Australia's public health insurance system, with that incident also occurring in June, and the state's Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research was also affected. Later, in late September, OpenAI issued a statement apologising and explaining that the incident occurred during internal company system training, and confirmed it would work with Australia to develop practical guidelines to help AI developers and government agencies detect and disclose cybersecurity threat incidents effectively.

The Reserve Bank of Australia, or RBA, released its half-yearly Financial Stability Review on Thursday, October 1, warning that the rapid development and deployment of artificial intelligence could pose risks to financial stability. It said advances in AI capabilities, combined with broader technological developments, have lowered the cost and technical expertise needed to carry out sophisticated cyberattacks on financial institutions and financial market infrastructure. The report said that before AI's potential to support productivity growth is fully realised, rapid advances in AI could intensify the cyber threat landscape and increase risks to operational vulnerabilities. In addition, AI-related investment and financing could create vulnerabilities for financial stability if the scale and pace of investment continue to grow over the coming years, with AI-related companies increasingly turning to debt to fund very large projects and off-balance-sheet financing through special purpose vehicles, or SPVs, becoming a primary method of raising funds for large AI infrastructure projects. At the same time, large amounts of external financing for AI-related investment could increase credit risk for banks, bond markets, private credit and other institutional investors if returns fall short of expectations. Several AI investment trends could lead to losses among lenders and investors.

Australia's online safety regulator is calling on online game providers to step up measures to prevent the sexual exploitation of children. Julie Inman Grant, Australia's eSafety Commissioner, released a report on 2 October stating that child protection measures vary widely from one game provider to another. The report said Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft and Steam take differing approaches to preventing children from accessing high-risk games, and warned that high-risk games can create environments conducive to the sexual exploitation of children, as well as activity that promotes crime or violence. Although the operators of Fortnite and Minecraft have measures to protect children's accounts, they rely only on the age users declare themselves. If a user states they are an adult, they can access high-risk features without any additional age verification. Meanwhile Valve, which operates the Steam platform, does not use tools to detect threats on its Steam Chat messaging service. The report added that Roblox and Valve use only their own internal company data to train language detection systems, and that those systems are not trained consistently. Inman Grant said Australian children have the right to play online games without encountering sexual groomers, sexual extortionists, extreme content that promotes violence, or other harmful content. She called on providers to use systems that can genuinely detect and stop serious threats before children are harmed, and said in closing that game providers need to adopt effective safety measures and apply them continuously to protect child and youth players.

Australian government bond yields are poised to fall below US government bond yields for the first time in more than a year, after the market anticipated that the monetary policy of the Reserve Bank of Australia, or RBA, is nearing the end of its rate-hiking cycle, while the US Federal Reserve still looks likely to raise rates further. The spread between the yield on 10-year Australian government bonds and that of equivalent US government bonds has narrowed to around 12 basis points, or bps, close to its lowest level since September 2025. Strategists from Barrenjoey Markets and Westpac Banking Corp. expect yields in the two countries to converge to similar levels in the coming months, while National Australia Bank, or NAB, believes the spread could turn negative, meaning Australian bond yields would fall below US yields. Kenneth Crompton, head of interest rate strategy at NAB in Sydney, said the bank's base case still expects the 10-year Australian and US bond yield spread to reverse in 2027, but that if it happens sooner, it would not be considered a major deviation from market conditions. He also expects that if the policy trajectories of the RBA and the Fed diverge as much as anticipated, the spread could fall back to around -20 bps by the end of 2027. Currently, the market expects the Fed to raise interest rates three more times, by 0.25% each, over the next 12 months, while the market expects the RBA to raise rates only once more, reflecting the increasingly clear divergence in monetary policy trajectories between the two countries.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that Australia's trade surplus fell to 495 million Australian dollars in August, down from 1.35 billion Australian dollars in July and below analysts' expectations of 2 billion Australian dollars, as imports grew faster than exports. Imports rose 5.8% month on month in August to 46.94 billion Australian dollars, driven by a 22.3% surge in capital goods imports, which included a 79.3% jump in imports of automatic data processing equipment and a 91.1% spike in non-monetary gold imports. Exports rose 3.7% month on month to 47.43 billion Australian dollars, recovering from a 3.3% decline in July, supported by a 20.2% increase in non-monetary gold exports and a 4.7% rise in exports of coal, coke and briquettes. The trade data was released just two days after the Reserve Bank of Australia raised its policy interest rate by 0.25% to 4.60%, its fourth hike this year, citing higher global energy prices and stronger technology goods prices amid demand for artificial intelligence.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that the Consumer Price Index accelerated to 4.0% in August year-on-year, up from 3.5% in July, but still below the 4.1% analysts had expected. On a monthly basis, the headline CPI rose 0.4%, while the seasonally adjusted CPI rose 0.7%. The core CPI, the measure the Reserve Bank of Australia watches closely, stood at 3.6% year-on-year, in line with expectations and unchanged from July. Higher fuel costs remained the main driver, with automotive fuel prices jumping 14.8% in August compared with July amid higher global crude oil prices, pushing transport inflation to 5.6% year-on-year. Housing inflation accelerated to 5.7% from 5.0% in July, with newly built home prices up 5.4%, electricity prices surging 13.2% after government subsidies ended, and rents up 3.6%. The data was released just one day after the Reserve Bank of Australia raised interest rates by 0.25% to 4.6%, a 15-year high and the fourth increase this year. The RBA board said inflation remains too high, driven by domestic price pressures and higher energy prices stemming from the war with Iran.

The Reserve Bank of Australia delivered a widely expected 25 basis point hike to 4.60%, a 15-year high, and kept the door open to further tightening, according to Brown Brothers Harriman. AUD/USD initially rallied on the hawkish statement but reversed as Governor Michele Bullock signaled less urgency. BBH highlights that the RBA hike will support AUD/USD.

Tronox Holdings plc has signed a cooperation and investment agreement with JX Advanced Metals Corporation to advance its rare earth and critical minerals business. Under the agreement, the two companies will fund on a 50/50 basis approximately $32 million to support a definitive feasibility study for Tronox's proposed rare earth cracking and leaching facility in Australia, a pre-feasibility study for a proposed rare earth oxide refinery in the United States, and development of a US-based pilot facility capable of producing initial quantities of high-purity rare earth oxides. The Cracking Plant is planned for the Rockingham Industrial Zone in Western Australia, about three kilometers south of Tronox's Kwinana TiO2 pigment plant, while the Refinery is expected to be located on Tronox-owned land adjacent to its Hamilton, Mississippi TiO2 pigment facility. Together, the two sites would aim to produce up to 10,000 tonnes per annum of total rare earth oxides, and the agreement also contemplates joint development of niobium, scandium, zirconium, and hafnium from Tronox's mineral resources. If the engineering studies demonstrate technical and commercial viability, the companies will explore forming a joint venture to fund, build, and operate the assets, and they have engaged with government-backed financing institutions including the US Export-Import Bank and Export Finance Australia.

US President Donald Trump has denied an Axios report that his administration offered to ease sanctions on Iran, including allowing access to frozen funds, in exchange for Iranian concessions on its nuclear program. Trump also announced plans to build the largest steel plant in US history, with an investment of about 15 billion dollars. Australia's central bank voted to raise interest rates by 0.25% to 4.6%, the highest level in 15 years and in line with analyst expectations. OpenAI announced it is scrapping plans to launch its new AI model GPT-6.1 Astra, originally scheduled for release in October, after internal testing found the system did not meet the company's safety and human-alignment standards. Anthropic, meanwhile, launched its latest AI model Claude Sonnet 5.5, the second model in the Claude 5.5 family, as it expands its product line ahead of an initial public offering. Samsung Electronics and five affiliated companies plan to invest a combined 1 billion US dollars in Helix Digital Infrastructure, an AI infrastructure company established by KKR, expanding from semiconductors into data centers, power systems, and connectivity networks.

The Reserve Bank of Australia decided at its monetary policy board meeting on the 29th to raise the policy rate by 0.25% to 4.60%. It was the first rate hike in three meetings and the fourth this year, decided unanimously, and the policy rate surpassed its peak during the COVID-19 pandemic to reach its highest level in 15 years, since late 2011. Citing prolonged inflation, the central bank judged that "further monetary tightening is appropriate." It also expressed concern that the situation in the Middle East remains tense and energy supply disruptions continue. On the future path of the policy rate, it said "further increases may be possible if necessary," stressing its readiness to raise rates again.

Goodman Group has shelved plans for an $840 million data center facility in suburban Sydney after facing significant community resistance, as Australia's data center boom runs into growing local opposition. The state of Victoria has also recently banned data centers in residential areas, and the Federal Senate has begun an inquiry into the sector. The debate is being amplified by AI security concerns after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called for stronger AI safeguards following revelations that an OpenAI model hacked a government website. Jeannie Paterson, co-director of the Centre for AI and Digital Ethics at the University of Melbourne, told Bloomberg that existing hacking and unauthorized-access laws in the US and Australia are not yet being enforced, and that jurisdiction is a hurdle because Anthropic does not currently train models in Australia, though that would change if the company makes predicted investments in Australian data centers. She added that civil penalties and tort liability, rather than criminal intent requirements, offer a more agile way to hold AI developers accountable, especially as companies approach IPOs where shareholders care about such exposure.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that household spending was flat at 0% in August compared with the previous month, below economists' expectations of 0.4% growth, reflecting a slowdown in demand in the economy amid expectations that the Reserve Bank of Australia will resume raising interest rates again at today's meeting. On an annual basis, spending rose 6.8%, also below the expected level of 7.1%. Tom Lay, head of business statistics at the Australian Bureau of Statistics, said spending on recreation and culture was the main factor dragging down overall spending, falling by as much as 1.4% after several months of increased spending driven by major sporting events. However, that decline was partly offset by higher spending in the transport category. The report also said fuel spending rose 8.1% in August after the government reinstated the full rate of the fuel excise, and excluding fuel spending, total household spending would have fallen 0.3%.