UPDATE 4-Australia sees strong iron ore, copper output growth

* ABARE sees stable to higher commodity output, despite gloom

* Iron ore output revised up, 8 pct growth seen for 09/10

* Wheat production seen edging higher, helping exports surge

* Copper mine output seen up 10 pct; zinc, nickel to fall (Adds graphic)

By Bruce Hextall

CANBERRA, March 3 (Reuters) - Australia forecast a strong rise in iron ore production and a 10 percent jump in copper mine output in the year to June 2010, even after factoring in a more prolonged economic slump that has already triggered supply curbs.

In its first forecasts for the coming financial year, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural & Resource Economics also said on Tuesday that a slight rise in the wheat crop would yield sharply higher exports, while production of coking coal was expected to remain largely unchanged after a downward revision.

At a time when many commodity producers are cutting back production quickly to keep pace with tumbling demand as the world falls into a deep recession, the ABARE forecasts suggest that some new projects are too advanced to stop, adding pressure to metal and ore prices that have already halved or more.

This might be especially true of iron ore, said DJ Carmichael & Co mining analyst James Wilson, citing recent expansions by Australia's top three producers, BHP Billiton (BHP.AX) (BLT.L), Rio Tinto (RIO.AX) (RIO.L) and Fortescue Metals (FMG.AX), as well as small upstarts Atlas Mining (AGO.AX) and BC Iron (BCI.AX).

"These would have been put in the works before the market tanked," Wilson said. "I suspect we'll see lower numbers coming out in the next forecast for these commodities."

ABARE itself pointed to the risk of downward revisions.

"We're in uncharted waters and still don't know how far it (the economy) is going to unravel so we've pushed back when we think the recovery is going to come," said ABARE Executive Director Phillip Glyde in an interview ahead of the release.

"The risks to these forecasts coming about is if we continue to see further failures in the financial sector and we lose further confidence in the capacity of that sector to underwrite normal sensible investments," Glyde told Reuters.

ABARE is forecasting global economic growth of 0.6 percent in 2009, rising to 3.0 percent in 2010 as big spending by governments around the world revives economies. But some traders said that seemed a distant prospect at present.

"There is some hope that all the pump-priming going will stimulate demand, but there are no signs of that just yet," a Sydney-based commodity trader said.

Total earnings from Australia's commodity exports -- a major engine of the economy -- are forecast to fall 17 percent to A$162 billion ($103 billion) in 2009/10, following an estimated 33 percent surge to A$196 billion in 2008/09 after big leaps in the prices of iron ore and coal as well as oil and gas.