#Official Mining Thread

[Cruise]

– the amount of copper mined in the next 25 years alone will be the same as the total amount mined in world history.

I must start going to building sites at night to knock off copper......

oh, I didn't say that.....

[skyliner]

Thanks for that Wayno. Just constant good news - getting better all the time. I see the point about population - immigration will have to pick up as is happening - we just don't have the people. I have heard the general concepts and news of like nature before as you have posted Wayno. Only the figure I saw was 500,000 people needed. If families are also involved of even one in two workers it takes the population increase to around 1m.No negative news anywhere about the boom - and at least for 100 years! SA will be something like a new Kuwait!

ADELAIDE - CITY ON THE MOVE

[Ho Really]

...No negative news anywhere about the boom - and at least for 100 years! SA will be something like a new Kuwait!

And Adelaide will be something like Calgary, Alberta, during its oil boom. Of course, it's up to our city council to raise those height limits!

Cheers

[AG]

Housing boom swells Roxby Downs
NICK HENDERSON, STATE POLITICAL REPORTER, ROXBY DOWNS*
May 03, 2008 12:30am
HOUSING is being built at breakneck speed to try to cater for a huge population boom in Roxby Downs.

Premier Mike Rann yesterday handed BHP worker Tony Holbrook keys to his new house, which is part of the $50 million Copper Sands development – the first of a three-stage project to house about 1000 residents when it is completed next year.
Transportable homes in other parts of the town are being built in just one day while 125 permanent houses in Copper Sands will be built in less than a year.

Mr Holbrook, who paid $420,000 for his four-bedroom house, said there was huge competition to find housing in Roxby Downs.

"There are large waiting lists for any rental accommodation. People need to go to places like Woomera to stay," he said.

He said many residents, including himself, had an investment property in the town to capitalise on high rents and rapidly increasing house prices.

"Some people have many houses here, taking a bet on the future of Roxby Downs," he said.

The State Government is purchasing houses, including 33 in the new Copper Sands precinct, for police, teachers and other public sector employees.

On his tour yesterday, Mr Rann said the mine expansion would proceed, despite rumours to the contrary. He refused to reveal how much ore from the Olympic Dam mine expansion he would demand the company process in South Australia.

Mr Rann last year said offshore refining was "not on" but yesterday appeared to have softened his position.

He said he would not reveal what percentage of the ore must be processed here for the expansion to be given the Government's go-ahead.

"The job for me . . . is to maximise the number of jobs for South Australians and I stand by what I said; I want to see the maximum amount of processing here onsite – jobs for South Australians," Mr Rann said.

When asked what percentage of the ore would be required to be processed in the state, Mr Rann would not commit to a figure.

"Those are the things that are being negotiated and one of the things that you will find, whether it is industrial relations or trying to win air warfare destroyer projects, is that you don't give away your negotiations," he said.

Mr Rann will continue his tour of mines in the state's Far North over the weekend.

[Wayno]

Housing boom swells Roxby Downs
NICK HENDERSON, STATE POLITICAL REPORTER, ROXBY DOWNS*
May 03, 2008 12:30am
HOUSING is being built at breakneck speed to try to cater for a huge population boom in Roxby Downs.
<snip>

For Sale, 3br house with view of massive hole in the ground

[Wayno]

Big boom in immediate future, bigger one later

Here's a graph showing the number of resource search permits handed out to individual mining companies. These are granted by the Dept of P.I.R. to allow companies to go search for goodies underground...

permits.JPG (27.67 KiB) Viewed 3891 times

In 2008 alone there have been 71 new search permits granted, already exceeding the 67 from 2007, and the 29 from 2006.

The boom we are about to experience (ramping up across the next 2-5 years time) is mainly due to the permits handed out across 1996-2005. The search permits from 2006 onwards will not become producing mines for many years. If 20% of the 167 permits handed since 2006 become mines then that's over 30 extra mines!

[Norman]

2 positive stories from Ten News regarding the general "boom".

[Wayno]

2 positive stories from Ten News regarding the general "boom".

i would have loved to see the initial flooding of the Cape Jaffa marina! all that water gushing in (even slowly) would have been quite a sight...

[Shuz]

A lot of ooohing and aaahing coming from me! Positive times ahead.

[Wayno]

$2000 for students focused on the mining industry...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008 ... 236709.htm

Study boost backs mining industry
University scholarships are being offered to South Australian students studying degrees that lead to careers in the mining industry.

Applications for the SA Government scholarships of $2,000 each are open to undergraduate and honours students of engineering and geology in their third, fourth or fifth year of study.

SA Further Education Minister Paul Caica says the scholarships will encourage senior students to remain committed to their studies.

He says it is vital that young people are encouraged to pursue careers in SA's mining industry.

"The Government is certainly committed to ensuring that our booming resources sector is supported with skilled personnel and this will also be a mechanism we hope by which people will be attracted to these sciences and, as a consequence of that, the mining industry," he said.

The scholarship program will cost the Government $200,000.

[UrbanSG]

The following is a small portion of an article in the Australian today:

Mining giants surf a high tide of flummery
Matthew Stevens | May 15, 2008

....The other sleeper in the Kloppers briefing was new detail on BHP Billiton's much-discussed Olympic Dam project.

To reinforce his description of the asset as "an incredibly rich resource" Kloppers produced a chart that predicted the gross average revenue yield from a tonne of resource at Olympic Dam would be $US106 a tonne.

Now that is an awful lot of value in a tonne of resource and to demonstrate that Kloppers revealed that the average yield at Escondida was $US31.

There are two conclusions to draw from that chart. The first is that if BHP Billiton gets OD right, the project could prove to be a second key differentiator in the value debate with Rio Tinto.

This is a big deal. After all yields are a primary concern for companies. Olympic Dam continues to look like it will get a massive expansion.

[UrbanSG]

Also found this article on smh.com.au:

Copper this: BHP spruiks mine
Jamie Freed
May 8, 2008

DESPITE recent operational hiccups, BHP Billiton has stepped up the promotion of its massive Olympic Dam copper, gold and uranium mine in South Australia to combat Rio Tinto's claims of superior copper growth projects.

In a presentation to clients of Macquarie Capital Securities in Sydney yesterday, the BHP executive in charge of the project, Graeme Hunt, deemed the deposit a "world-class and superior resource".

The presentation slides noted Olympic Dam - the world's fourth-largest copper deposit - had a higher average copper equivalent grade than Rio's Resolution, Oyu Tolgoi, La Granja and Pebble projects.

Mr Hunt said Olympic Dam contained more copper mineralisation than all of Rio's copper growth projects, although the comparison only included Rio's present direct exposure to 19.9 per cent of the Oyu Tolgoi project in Mongolia.

The Olympic Dam underground mine has been a consistent underperformer since BHP acquired it through its $9.2 billion acquisition of WMC Resources in 2005, and produced 182,500 tonnes of copper last year.

Mr Hunt said BHP was working to "optimise" the current configuration so the mine could produce 200,000 tonnes of copper a year, but that still falls short of the operation's full production capacity of 220,000 tonnes a year.

BHP is planning to build a huge open-cut mine to take advantage of the massive resource. The company has declined to update a $US5 billion capital cost figure released in 2006 until it has done more studies. There is market speculation the final cost could be $US20billion ($21.1 billion), but BHP has said the expansion will increase production capacity to 730,000 tonnes and more of copper a year in several phases.

Rio's chief executive, Tom Albanese, has referred to Olympic Dam's expansion costs and viability as a key question mark hanging over BHP's future, and has indicated his company would want more detailed information about the project if it were to eventually agree to a higher scrip offer from its rival.

The Olympic Dam mine could eventually produce 19,000 tonnes or more of uranium a year, which might depress the price of the commodity. But Mr Hunt said China alone could require 88,000 to 150,000 tonnes of uranium a year by 2030 as it built nuclear power plants to meet its growing need for electricity.

[Professor]

About a year ago I sat next to a mining engineer on a flight from Brisbane to Adelaide. He was one of the several hundred contractors involved on the BHP ODX planning.

Back then, he said that the cost would be at least $12b, probably more.

The thing is that this is one of the largest deposits of mixed ore in the world. It will take enourmous amounts of effort and equipment to dig the hole and start the mine. Then there is the processing of the ore.

BHP may well try to just extract the ore and send the slurry down a pipe to Whyalla and export the raw materials. Cheaper for BHP to dig it here and get the processing done in China. That would be bad for SA in terms of jobs etc.

Luckily, there would be uranium concentrate in the slurry of ore and the export of uranium has strict controls.

So BHP, stop dicking around and finish the pre-feasilility study. You are a year late in providing the study and still don't appear to know how to handle this major ore body.

[Wayno]

another one...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008 ... 249132.htm

New uranium mining bid
Posted 1 hour 1 minute ago
An application has been lodged for another uranium mining lease just north of the Beverley mine in the north-east of South Australia.

An affiliate of Heathgate Resources, which owns the Beverley mine, is applying to lease the Four Mile deposit.

It is considered one of the most significant uranium finds since the Olympic Dam discovery near Roxby Downs in SA.

The SA Government says the Four Mile mine is expected to create more than 200 jobs.

[Wayno]

The latest MESA journal has been released by the Dept of P.I.R.

Here's a few highlights:
Figure 1 - mineral exploration targets blast through the $100m per annum target!
Figure 2 - hopefully we will exceed the $4b target line (in red) way before 2013/14.
Figure 3 - shows value of mineral production per resource
Table 3 - Govt royalties has nearly tripled in 5 years to $78m per annum. All being well it should reach $200-300m per year by 2013/14 (my personal extrapolation judgement)

mesa-journal-48_image1.JPG (115.99 KiB) Viewed 2913 times

The main focus of new mining ventures has been on copper/gold, uranium, and mineral sands.

mesa-journal-48_image2.JPG (33.37 KiB) Viewed 2911 times

The pyramid below shows active mines (top), work in progress mines (middle), and prospective mines (bottom). The potential is amazing...

mesa-journal-48_image3.JPG (46.75 KiB) Viewed 2911 times

Lots more goodies in the full report here ==> http://www.pir.sa.gov.au/minerals/publi ... urnal_-_48