expansion

Crown Casino (ASX:CWN) has announced plans of building a $568 million 6 star hotel at its Perth casino. A deal struck with the Western Australian (WA) government includes an expansion of gambling facilities. The hotel is called Crown Towers and will be built on the Burswood Peninsula. It will have 500 rooms (increasing capacity to 1200 rooms in the precinct) along with restaurants, bars, resort and convention facilities.

Education company Navitas (NVT) has decided to expand its college establishments as it will bring Birmingham City University International College to Britain, under a 10-year agreement with the university. As the ninth college of the education company in Britain, Navitas is expecting its operational breakeven in 18-24 months.

Woodside Petroleum (WPL has announced today its approval of the $2.5 billion development of the Greater Western Flank (GWF) project to mark the expansion of North West Shelf. The first phase of GWF will also include the development of Goodwyn GH and Tidepole fields.

RioTinto (RIO) invests an additional $2.7 billion to complete the $3.3 billion modernisation of aluminium smelter in Kitimat. The project is designed to meet the increasing demand from the Asia Pacific Region.

The Kitimat project is going to increase the smelter's production capacity by more than 48 per cent to 420,000 tonnes a year. The $3.3 billion project is expected to be completed in 2014.

Australian agricultural chemicals maker Nufarm (NUF) expands its seeds business by buying the American sunflower seed company Seeds 2000 for $53.83 million. Sunflower is an important oilseed and snackfood crop to the company as it produces 32 million metric tonnes of grain every year.

Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) is shelling $813 million to bankroll the expansion of its Pilbara iron ore mine in Western Australia. Driven by strong iron ore prices, Rio continues to post record profit margins from its Pilbara operations and the cashout was long in the cards.

"These projects provide certainty in meeting our power and fuel supply requirements, both now and into the future," Rio iron ore chief Sam Walsh said.

A possible cash flow surplus could result in mergers and acquisitions for BHP Billiton (ASX:BHP) and Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO), according to a Merrill Lynch analysis. The mining giants could create around $20 billion in free cash flow to spur new ventures and share buybacks.

BHP Billiton (ASX:BHP) has estimated the expansion cost for its Worsley alumina project in Western Australia to increase by more than half. BHP's share of the cost jumped to US$2.995 billion from the previous May 2008 figure of US$1.9 billion.

Project complexity and inflation drove up the costs, said Andrew Mackenzie, chief executive of BHP's non-ferrous unit. He called Worsley one of the most complex brownfield projects the company has undertaken.

ANZ Bank's (ASX:ANZ) is putting Asia in the spotlight. The banking giant said that the continent is forecast to be the major revenue source in its "aggressive" growth in the Asia-Pacific, Europe and America (APEA) region.

ANZ has opened a branch in Mumbai, its first in India. APEA chief executive Alex Thursby said that 70 staff are already in India and he hopes to ramp up this number to about 200 or 300 employees in the coming years.

Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) is ramping up its Pilbara mine expansion and investing $635 million in the project. Rio hopes to boost mine capacity by 50 percent to 333 million tonnes annually by the first half of 2015, which is six months ahead of schedule.

Sam Walsh, Rio chief executive of iron ore and Australia said: "We are taking the opportunity to bring forward the next phase of our major capacity expansion to reap the benefits early and at no additional cost."