This week in interesting industry headlines: 

Florida readies for Tropical Storm Erika [Miami Herald]

"Haiti and the Dominican Republic braced for Tropical Storm Erika Friday morning as it churned westward on a course that could have the storm making landfall in southwest Florida Monday morning." Read more

Brazil Expected to be Major Exporter [Agriculture.com]

"Brazil, the fifth most populous nation, suddenly is second to the U.S. as the world’s largest agricultural exporter and has room to expand production." Read more

Miners Cozying Up With Rivals to Endure Commodity Turmoil [Bloomberg Business]

"Those deals are part of a nascent trend to join forces to run mines or to develop projects that might otherwise face cancellation or long delays. It’s a contrast from just a few years ago when companies preferred, and investors rewarded, simple ownership structures and decision-making." Read more

IronPlanet, the leading online marketplace for used heavy equipment and trucks, and Finning International Inc. (TSX:FTT), the largest Cat^® dealer in the world, today announced that Finning has agreed to jointly market used heavy equipment through Cat Auction Services, IronPlanet’s unreserved auction marketplace. Finning will be hosting IronPlanet’s first Canadian Cat Auction Services live unreserved public auction on Wednesday, October 21, 2015, in Edmonton, Alberta.

Coming up on Thursday, August 27, IronPlanet's weekly featured auction has a particularly large offering of construction equipment, generators, excavators, heating and cooling equipment, trucks and trailers. Also for sale are three late-model, low-hour Cat 777G dump trucks from a seller in Western Australia (learn more). The price of a new 777G is about $1.6 million, and these units-- opening bids are $700,000-- only have about 2,000 hours! They’re sitting about 65 miles from Fremantle, the largest deep-water port in Western Australia. 

All items are now available for preview and advance bidding! 

Here are just a few of the exciting offerings for this week's sale: 

2006 Mack CV713 Tri/A Dump Truck

Item #611671, 186,222 miles. Steel Dump Body, Air Ride Cab,Steerable Air Lift Pusher Axle, Spring Type Suspension, Dual Fuel Tanks, Mack AI-427 Engine, 427 Adv Horsepower, Engine Brake, Allison Automatic Transmission, Sun Visor, Chrome Bumper, Air Conditioning, Cruise Control, Power Windows, Power Locks, Heated Mirrors, Dual High Back Seats, Tilt and Telescopic Steering Wheel. See more

PLEASANTON, Calif. –

Who:

IronPlanet^®, the leading online marketplace for buying and selling used heavy equipment and trucks, willconduct late summer auctions across its online marketplaces from August 26 – August 28. The auctions include a broad selection of equipment, including more than 2,200 lots. Featured items from the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Australia and across Europe include quality late model, low hour construction equipment, military surplus, dump trucks, track excavators, wheel loaders and much more. Featured seller: Southeastern Equipment Company.

This week in interesting industry headlines: 

Nonresidential Construction Sector Continues Steady Pace Despite Drop in Overall Economy [For Construction Pros]

"The construction industry continues to proceed on the recovery track, although it is showing signs of a minor deceleration,” said Chris Daum, president and senior managing director of investment banking at FMI. “Despite the decrease in projected backlog and the squeeze from rising material costs, executives in our industry are still bullish and hold positive outlooks overall." Read more

Central America issues alert as severe drought hits agriculture [Yahoo News]

"Central American and Caribbean governments on Thursday issued an officia

l alert as severe drought in the region damages the crops of some 1.6 million people." Read more

Oil Companies Sit on Hands at Auction for Leases [The New York Times]

"It was the clearest sign yet that the fortunes of oil companies are skidding so fast that they now need to cut back on plans for production well into the future." Read more

Tomorrow, IronPlanet's weekly featured auction will hit the ground running, with over a thousand items available to review and bid on now! This auction includes lots of late-model, low-hour equipment, in industries spanning construction, agriculture and more, with most items hailing from the U.S. and Canada. 

Some of the notable offerings in this week's auction: 

2014 Cat 316EL Track Excavator
Item #569941, 3,855 hours. Enclosed Cab, Air Conditioner, Heater, Rear View Camera, Straight Line Travel Pedal, Control Pattern Changer, 10' 2" Stick, 58" Smooth Edge Bucket. See more

Sue McGregor, Managing Director of Canada, IronPlanet, discusses 7 ways to get the most out of your specialized mining, oil & gas fleet.  Read more on her thoughts on Page A12 here.  

Interesting industry headlines from this week:

New Cat Monitoring System to Address the 'Human Factor' [Construction Equipment Guide]

"Inside Caterpillar’s 24/7 monitoring center, analysts correlate data about the health and productivity of operators and equipment to reveal the magnitude of conditions such as fatigue and distraction and their impact on operations." See more

Inside Shell's Extreme Plan to Drill for Oil in the Arctic [Bloomberg Business]

"Even sympathetic observers find it curious, though, that Shell and Shell alone sees future profit in the Chukchi, especially after its misadventures there in 2012. Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Statoil, and Total have all put Arctic plans on hold." See more

Japan, China vie to build high-speed rail in Indonesia [The Japan Times]

"President Joko Widodo has ambitious plans to improve Indonesia’s infrastructure, which could boost manufacturing and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs." See more

Sue McGregor, Managing Director of Canada, IronPlanet, discusses when it is worth the time to sell older equipment and when it is best to fix it up in an article for Supply Post.  Read more on her thoughts on Page 59 here.  

Check out our new animated short, which walks you through the IronPlanet model and how we work-- in just over a minute.

With 15 years of experience in the online surplus heavy equipment marketplace industry, we are not only going strong in 2015: We're growing! Thanks for your trust and your business since 2000, and we are looking forward to serving more buyers and sellers around the world with our high standards of customer care for many more years to come.

For more videos about IronPlanet, be sure to explore our YouTube channel! 

This Thursday, IronPlanet's weekly featured auction includes large volume from sellers in Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Alabama and Virginia. If you're in need of late-model, low-hour equipment, including crawler tractors, excavators, loaders, and trucks, you're in luck with this week's sale! Don't miss a great package of crawler tractors, motor graders, skid-steer loaders and more from Western Canada.