#Official Mining Thread

[Cruise]

I'm very neighbourly, that's why i leave my front door unlocked at all times.... oh hang on i didn't say that

[Norman]

I'm very neighbourly, that's why i leave my front door unlocked at all times....

In Elizabeth?

Anyways, back on topic please guys.

[Wayno]

from bloomberg (i missed this one - it's dated march 17)

South Australia Expects A$25 Billion Uranium Investments
By Angela Macdonald-Smith

March 17 (Bloomberg) -- Uranium mining companies in South Australia may invest A$25 billion ($24 billion) in as many as 30 projects and developments, including BHP Billiton Ltd.'s planned expansion of its Olympic Dam mine, a state minister said.

The Olympic Dam expansion will increase output at the site to 15,000 metric tons, more than Canada's total uranium oxide output of about 11,000 tons in 2007, Paul Holloway, minister for mineral resources development, said today at a conference in Adelaide. He didn't give a timetable for the investment.

The state's government supports the development of uranium mines, unlike fellow Labor administrations in Queensland and Western Australia that don't allow the production of the radioactive metal even after the party's federal body scrapped a mining ban. Two of the nation's three producing mines are in South Australia.

"Olympic Dam isn't the only uranium project being developed in South Australia,'' Holloway said in the address, a copy of which was e-mailed to Bloomberg News. "There are currently 83 exploration companies holding 339 exploration licenses for uranium in South Australia and a growing list of Adelaide-based uranium explorers listing, or proposing to list, on the Australian Stock Exchange.''

Uranium One Inc. is due to start up the Honeymoon project in South Australia this year, one of three projects worldwide the company is due to start up in 2008, the Toronto-based company said last month.

Four Mile
A venture between Alliance Resources Ltd. and Heathgate Resources Pty's Quasar Resources Ltd. unit may this year decide to develop the Four Mile mine near Heathgate's operating Beverley project, also in South Australia, Steve Johnston, chief executive officer of Alliance, said today in a separate e-mailed statement. The mine may start production in 2010 at a cost of between A$20 million and A$25 million, he said.

The timetable for applying for government approval to develop the Four Mile project will be subject to the results of mining and processing trials due to start next quarter, said Alliance, which owns 25 percent of the project.

PepinNini Minerals Ltd. and partner SinoSteel Corp. are also targeting 2010 for the start-up of their Crocker Well project in South Australia.

BHP, the world's largest mining company, in November estimated the cost of expanding the Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine in Australia at $5 billion in advance of a feasibility study on the project, which may result in a cost increase. Energy Resources of Australia Ltd., controlled by Rio Tinto Group, is investing A$57 million to expand its mine in the Northern Territory.

More Forceful
The federal Labor government, which won power in a November election, needs to adopt a more forceful position on uranium mining to restore investor confidence in uranium stocks, Warwick Grigor, managing director of Far East Capital Ltd., said in an address to the conference, notes for which were e-mailed to Bloomberg News.

"The situation at state government level is also just as pathetic as it was a year ago," Grigor said. ``There has been no backing down of the anti-uranium stance in Western Australia, and the Queensland government continues with the pathetically parochial and anti-environmental view that it does not want to stand in the way of the development of its coal industry.''

The spot uranium price, which reached a record $138 a pound in June, may trade within a range of $60-$90 a pound for the rest of the year, he said. The price was at $74 a pound on March 10, according to The Ux Consulting Co. LLC's Web site.

another cool $25billion coming down under...

[frank1]

How hypocritical is WA and QLD as they mine their state 'down to the bone' and become economic powerhouses and when adelaide decides to start mining, suddenly they want mining ban as they care for the environment. At the rate their going at, they won' t have any environemt left. I think they just don't want SA to cash in on the mining as they see SA's huge minig potential.

Anyway great news for SA . More money

[Shuz]

Whats that theme song for the Apprentice?... Money money, mon-ey! Da da da da...

[UrbanSG]

This is huge, from today's Australian:

BHP to use half of state's electricity
Jeremy Roberts | March 27, 2008

BHP Billiton will need nearly half of South Australia's current electricity supply to power its vastly expanded Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine.

The mining company wrote to potential suppliers this month revealing that power demand for the mine was expected to top 690megawatts when it reaches full production in 10 years.

This 30 per cent increase on previous forecasts for the mine 600km northwest of Adelaide is equivalent to nearly 42 per cent of South Australia's total electricity consumption and nearly half of Adelaide's power supply.

An industry insider yesterday described as "staggering" BHP's new power needs, which exceed previous forecasts by 170mW.

It would require the building of new power stations in the state at a time when incentives for business to invest in traditional power generation are clouded by efforts to combat global warming.

The new BHP forecast comes a week after the Rudd Government's Garnaut report on greenhouse emissions recommended power generators not be compensated in a carbon trading scheme.

South Australia has been an importer of electricity for several years, and its power distribution system was stretched to capacity to meet demand during the record heatwave earlier this month.

BHP is the state's largest single power consumer, taking 120mW. The company will use the aditional 570mW to power on-site mineral processing to separate uranium, copper and gold, as well as for the expanded Roxby Downs township, a larger airport and the new open-cut mining operation.

The instability in the power generation sector adds to the challenges BHP faces in developing Olympic Dam.

A company spokeswoman yesterday described the request for 690mW of power as an estimate. "The expansion project remains in pre-feasibility and is yet to be approved," she said. But in correspondence to the state's power suppliers, dated March 5 and marked "commercial in confidence", BHP calls for expressions of interest to supply the power.

The correspondence was followed by in-person briefings on March 12, and asks suppliers to address three supply options: power generation at the Olympic Dam site, elsewhere in the state, or a combination of both.

The company says 60mW of the power would be used to run a desalination plant planned for the coast of the Upper Spencer Gulf, and to pump the water 320km north to Olympic Dam.

Providing the additional power within a 10-year timeframe will challenge South Australia's energy planners.

Gas-fired power stations normally take up to three years to build, industry sources said. Queensland's largest coal-fired power station, Kogan Creek in the western Darling Downs, which was opened last December, took four years to build.

Sourcing base-load renewable energy from "hot rocks" geothermal sources in the north of the state may become an option, but the technology has not yet been proved viable.

The South Australian Government has not imposed any mandatory requirements on BHP to source renewable energy.

South Australian Greens MP Mark Parnell said the lack of renewable energy sources for Olympic Dam would make the state a "greenhouse pariah".

"Our state risks being left with a huge carbon black hole as we become the greenhouse dump for one of the world's richest companies," Mr Parnell said.

[Howie]

My gosh!

[Shuz]

Well, whoever gets their bill at the end of each quarter is going to be very happy.

[Omicron]

That's remarkable.

[Wayno]

i don;t know what to think - it's definitely a greenhouse issue, but also an excellent outcome for the SA economy. This mine is soooo big!

[Shuz]

This is why we should be going nuclear & desal, so that there are no greenhouse implications.

[Cruise]

This is why we should be going nuclear & desal, so that there are no greenhouse implications.

lol!!!

[monotonehell]

This is why we should be going nuclear & desal, so that there are no greenhouse implications.

Mining has a huge carbon footprint as well as other environmental concerns. It's time for some lateral thought on this subject.

The desal plant could probably be run by a small solar mirror array focused on a saline tower. But the mine and refinery itself seems to be a huge power sink. It would need at least three solar towers the scale of the planned BrightSourceEnergy California plant.

[UrbanSG]

More from the Australian today re: Olympic Dam. Looks like it will be a 3 stage project due ot its immense size. The EIS is due out later this year and that will be a key document with a lot of detail and the true scope of the project.

BHP rejects cost blowout at Olympic Dam
Andrew Trounson | March 28, 2008

BHP Billiton says increased power estimates for the proposed expansion of its massive Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine in South Australia are estimates only and the final scope of the project is still being studied.

The Australian revealed yesterday that BHP had written to potential power suppliers flagging a possible 30 per cent increase in power needs, raising fresh question marks over the final cost of the development, as takeover target Rio Tinto continues to seek to undermine the project by claiming BHP is being "secretive" on detail and stoking speculation that the project faces major cost blowouts.

BHP has rejected talk of cost blowouts, noting that the project is still pre-feasibility and that it is being envisaged as a three-stage expansion.

"Any numbers at this stage are estimates only," BHP spokeswoman Samantha Evans said of the power numbers.

"Given it is still in pre-feasibility, we'll be looking at a range of options," she said. Part of the increased power requirements are related to plans for building a desalination plant on the Upper Spencer Gulf, from where it would pump water to the mine site 320km to the north.

Rio sees the uncertainty over the eventual cost and viability of the Olympic Dam expansion as a key issue as it seeks to fend off BHP's hostile 3.4-for-1 share offer. On Wednesday, Rio chief executive Tom Albanese accused BHP of being "secretive" on the project and questioned its timing.

BHP promotes Olympic Dam as rivalling Russia's Norilsk nickel deposit as the world's biggest single base metal discovery. It has said that a giant open pit development could result in copper production rising to 730,000 tonnes a year from 180,000 tonnes.

According to BHP, that prospective increase in copper production would eclipse the growth Rio Tinto is seeking from its proposed greenfield copper developments in Mongolia and Peru.

However, BHP is exploring a controversial option to export all expanded production as copper ore concentrate rather than smelting into metal, as it does currently, in a move that would reduce capital spending.

But that has raised government concerns that BHP would be backing away from value-adding processing. And the plan is doubly controversial because the copper concentrate would contain uranium, the export of which is tightly controlled. This may present problems for copper smelters that may have difficulty handling the uranium.

An environmental impact statement is due out later this year and will include BHP's preferred development option. The document will be key in allowing the market to better value the project and is likely to come out at similar time to when BHP's pre-conditional bid for Rio goes live, subject to regulatory approvals.

The pre-feasibility study is expected to be completed in 2009 before a full-blown feasibility study starts.

In December, BHP chief executive Marius Kloppers said the project was envisaged as a staged and continuous expansion. A first stage expansion would almost double copper production to 350,000 tonnes a year, before further expansion to 540,000 tonnes and 730,000 tonnes. At that level, uranium production would be increased from around 400 tonnes a year to 14,000 tonnes a year.

South Australian Premier Mike Rann distanced his Government from investing in BHP Billiton's power needs.

He said: "We won't be paying for it, I can promise you that."

But he revealed the company was exploring low-emission options, including piping gas from Queensland. Gas-fired power stations produce about 20 per cent of the greenhouse emissions of an equivalent coal-fired power station.

Energy sector sources said that a singe combined-cycle gas-fired power station producing all of Olympic Dam's power needs would be the largest ever built in Australia.

Additional reporting: Jeremy Roberts

[Shuz]

Should BHP build its own power plant (as it should anyway) they could generate some additional revenue by selling off unused power loads back into the national or state grid. Really, Rann needs to get off his no-nuclear stance and let BHP operate on a nuke plant, with the huge uranium deposits they'd be digging up, they'd be using thier own power for free basically.