Sensational-Adelaide.com

Olympic Dam moves down BHP's list of priorities

by: John Durie
From:The Australian
December 06, 201212:16PM

BHP Billiton has underlined Olympic Dam?s status on the back, back burner by shuffling responsibility for the project to the base metals group under Chile-based Peter Beaven.

The project remains the world?s best known uranium resource and as such will be kept as an option in Marius Klopper?s backpocket in case the world energy market changes dramatically.

But for the moment Olympic Damn will be treated as a potential long-term copper project

Olympic Dam boss rises from ranks

Christopher Russell

December 06, 201210:30PM

GLOBAL miner BHP Billiton has picked an executive of 22 years experience with the company to lead its South Australian operations as it regroups on planning the expansion of Olympic Dam.

Darryl Cuzzubbo, now operations chief at the mine, will retain that role and become BHP's SA president effectively the frontline negotiator with the State Government.

He began working at Olympic Dam in October, moving from senior operational and project roles in coal and and steel.

He will replace Dean Dalla Valle who moves to Sydney as president of BHP's energy coal.

The uranium customer segment which Mr Dalla Valle headed will be disbanded and Olympic Dam returned to the base metals segment from which it was elevated in July 2007.

"This decision fits with BHP Billiton's long-term strategy for copper," a BHP spokesman said.

"Olympic Dam is a primarily a copper mine with uranium, gold and silver credits.


"Following the sale of Yeelirrie uranium deposit in Western Australia, Olympic Dam is the sole vehicle for our participation in the uranium market."

Olympic Dam produces about 180,000t a year of copper and 4000t of uranium oxide.

In his operations role, Mr Cuzzubbo will work under Peter Beaven, the Santiago-based head of BHP's copper assets.

In his role pursuing studies into Olympic Dam and SA relations, Mr Cuzzubbo will work under BHP's chief executive of all non-ferrous assets Andrew Mackenzie.

Premier Jay Weatherill said he remained satisfied with BHP's commitment.

"I raised these changes with BHP chief executive Marius Kloppers today and he reaffirmed BHP Billiton's commitment to SA and to the Olympic Dam expansion project," he said.

"This is evidenced by their recently announced $650 mil-lion investment in the ex-pansion project and their recently acquired extensive exploration licence coverage.

"SA maintains excellent relations with Andrew Mackenzie, who remains the overall head of this project within BHP Billiton."

However, Opposition Mineral Resources Development spokesman Dan van Holst Pellekaan questioned whether BHP was "offshoring" management.

"Only weeks after the Weatherill Government promised South Australians a good deal, the public is told that BHP is moving responsibility for the management of Olympic Dam mine from Adelaide to Chile," he said.

"If the Premier knew that BHP was intending to shift this responsibility away from SA when the extension was announced why didn't he inform the public?

"If Premier Weatherill did not know, then how can he claim to have a good and open working relationship with BHP?"

BHP said while no decisions had been made it expects some redundancies because of the changes and BHP's company-wide cost reduction push.

BHP has consistently said it cannot guarantee the Olympic Dam expansion will go ahead. "But we are working hard to give this project the best chance to succeed," the spokesman said

Wayno wrote:It's a guess to presume good, bad or indifferent. The govt unsurprisingly talks it up while the opposition, also unsurprisingly, talks it down. BHP have simply put a more appropriate person at the helm given the next few years is about science & engineering - they are working to trial & refine an alternate copper extraction method.

claybro wrote:I think part of the new deal for BHP to continue to hold the licence for Olympic Dam, would be a guarantee that if mining commences in ODX be it in 20-30 years, that all their administration Australia Wide is consolidated in Adelaide.We need to push more for head offices here in Adelaide. It often amazes me why so many Australian head offices exist in Melbourne. Transport, manufacturing, finance,even mining, the list is endless, and yet Melbourne itself is the furthest mainland capital from both the rest of Australia and world markets. Ok Perth is isolated, but easliy accessible by air and sea and closer to Asian markets. Melbourne is neither, and yet, they hold head offices in industries where the state of Victoria is not even a major player and the trade thought thier ports, air and sea is phenominal.

claybro wrote:I think part of the new deal for BHP to continue to hold the licence for Olympic Dam, would be a guarantee that if mining commences in ODX be it in 20-30 years, that all their administration Australia Wide is consolidated in Adelaide.

Will wrote:I think it is piss weak that the state government backed down to BHP for absolutely no gain regarding extending approval for olympic dam. The Australian base metals HQ remains in Melbourne.

Will wrote:The global base metals HQ remains in Santiago. The Australian uranium HQ in Adelaide gets wound up.

Wayno wrote:

claybro wrote:I think part of the new deal for BHP to continue to hold the licence for Olympic Dam, would be a guarantee that if mining commences in ODX be it in 20-30 years, that all their administration Australia Wide is consolidated in Adelaide.

Yes, the State Govt can negotiate with BHP on such matters, but you can bet other states, esp WA, already have long-term agreements with BHP to retain & expand a local presence in Perth, or risk violating their license. Then we're up against Victoria, where although not a lot of local mining occurs outside of brown coal, there does exist plenty of white collar mining expertise in Melbourne central. Possession is 9/10s of the law as they say.

The plan in SA was to have the global uranium business run out of Adelaide, never was it discussed to consolidate all Australian administration here.

Will wrote:I think it is piss weak that the state government backed down to BHP for absolutely no gain regarding extending approval for olympic dam. The Australian base metals HQ remains in Melbourne.

Mate, i feel your pain - probably more than yourself, but it's futile. Our State Govt are mere puppets in this game. BHP hold the strings and make decisions based on their business plan, not our govt desires. The notion of Weatherill forcing BHPs hand, having them commit to major decisions against market conditions, is fanciful.

Some have even suggested we should strip BHP of their rights over ODX, including surrounding tenements. But what good would that do? no other mining company worldwide is large enough to take on the ODX expansion. Rio Tinto might have deep enough pockets, but their focus is iron ore, not complex ore bodies. Let's also keep in mind the current underground ODX operations nets us something like $50-80m a year in royalties, and BHP retain an office in Adelaide because of it. Lose that presence and they may never return.

Will wrote:The global base metals HQ remains in Santiago. The Australian uranium HQ in Adelaide gets wound up.

Look at it this way - if you were Marius Kloppers, who's rule at BHP is being questioned because of a few sub-optimal mega deals in the last 3 years, would you care what our state govt thinks or says? No CEO would make firm dollar or headcount commitments today on the premise of maybe, perhaps, expanding operations in 2, 4 or 10+ years. What makes sense is to locate your Copper HQ where your main copper operation, the largest in the world, already exists.

Precious metal producers set to hit pay dirt

AUSTRALIA boasts the world’s largest economic silver resources, while its silver production ranks third after Mexico, Peru and the US. World silver mining production increased to a new record of 23,800t in 2011, and the metal has been among the best commodity performers in 2012.

One of Investigator Resources’ key projects is the greenfield Paris silver discovery and other silver targets within the large newly-recognised Peterlumbo epithermal field on the northern Eyre Peninsula in South Australia.

Paris has the potential to be a shallow, extremely high-grade and large silver deposit. In late October 2012, the company reported it had unearthed yet more high-grade silver with an intercept of 10.03m grading 2591 grams per tonne of silver including 1m grading 19,800g/t – equivalent to 1.98 per cent of silver – at Paris.

“The ongoing high-grade silver intersections and exciting potential at Paris override the challenges presented by the complex geology and difficult drilling conditions,” Investigator managing director John Anderson said.

The company expects a maiden resource estimate early in 2013, with the Paris prospect the most advanced of five priority targets within the Peterlumbo epithermal field.

Dr Huston said Paris was of particular interest because it represented the first time that style of mineralisation had been recognised in Australia.

“The silver deposits in Mexico, like Fresnillo, are potentially of a similar style which could be significant in terms of overall grade and tonnages,” he said.

“Right now we don’t know a lot about this region, but the company is continuing to get good grades.

“The other thing is if their interpretation is right and it’s an epithermal deposit associated with the Gawler Range Volcanics, then that opens up a very large region for exploration much larger than the known prospects they have now, which is very exciting.”

Exploration results show size and scale

AUSTRALIAN miner Iron Road has announced a half a billion tonne resource upgrade at its Central Eyre Iron Project (CEIP) in South Australia.

The total mineral resource, which covers the Murphy South, Boo-Loo and part of the Rob Roy areas, now stands at 2.6bt grading 16 per cent iron, 54 per cent silicon dioxide, 13 per cent aluminium oxide and 0.08 per cent phosphorous.

Iron Road believes the upgrade, which is part of an ongoing drilling program, demonstrates the size, scale and potential long-term production life for the project.

In 2009, Coffey Mining established a global exploration target of between 2.8bt and 5.7bt of magnetite gneiss grading between 18 per cent and 25 per cent iron at the project.

Managing director Andrew Stocks said the company expected to add more to the resources at Central Eyre in the near future.

“Given our success in bringing in bringing in our exploration targets to minerals resources in the past, we have increasing confidence that we will repeat this success across our global resource,” he said.

“Looking at our long-term vision, we ultimately expect to define enough resources to produce a billion tonnes of high-quality concentrate for export from the CEIP operations, over a very long life.

“This will more than underpin the capital requirement to get this unique and special operation into production.”

A definitive feasibility study for the project, together with a prefeasibility study, demonstrated that the mineral resource could be readily upgraded to a high-quality concentrate grading 67 per cent iron.

The prefeasibility study confirmed the viability for a 12.4 million tonne per annum operation but Iron Road is assessing the possibility of increasing annual production to 20mtpa.

CEIP comprises a large, low strip ratio and low variability magnetite deposit that will be mined using standard conventional open pit mining methods.

Drilling returns extensive muti-commodity results

DIVERSIFIED multi-commodity explorer Tasman Resources has announced the drilling of a third hole at its Vulcan project, 30km north of Olympic Dam, about 550km north-northwest of Adelaide in South Australia.

Drilling resumed at the iron oxide-coppergold-uranium (IOCGU) project, which is operated as a joint venture with Rio Tinto Exploration, in September 2012.

The hole, VUD 11, intersected more than 620m of IOCGU-style highly altered and brecciated rocks – which included a 12m intersection of massive hematite – and was the third to be completed as part of the JV’s exploration program.

As the rocks contain only minor amounts of copper sulfides, Tasman reported that it expected assays, when received, would be relatively low.

VUD 11 is inclined at -70 degrees and has been drilled towards the south. It was designed to test the central portion of the very large gravity anomaly, which comprises the southern segment of the Vulcan target. The composition of the rock is dominated by minerals that characterise IOCGU ore deposits such as Olympic Dam.

Despite the lack of mineralisation in VUD 11 and the two previous holes drilled in the southern segment of the Vulcan prospect, Tasman reported that it was encouraged by the magnitude and large aerial extent of the geological processes that had clearly been operating in that part of the project.

“The task is now to find where this very large system has concentrated the copper, gold and uranium normally associated with these IOCGU geological processes,” the company stated.

Drilling is underway on the fourth hole, VUD 12, in the JV exploration program.

Tasman discovered the Vulcan prospect in November 2009, and further drilling in 2010 and 2011 produced encouraging results.

New SA uranium discovery takes the cake

A high-grade uranium discovery has been made during the maiden drill program at Core Exploration’s wholly-owned Fitton project in South Australia.

The find is within a proven world-class uranium mining district about 500km north of Adelaide, and results included 5m grading 0.25 per cent uranium oxide.

Moderate grade copper and uranium was also discovered, with a best intersection of 5m grading 0.18 per cent copper and 217 parts per million uranium oxide.

Core company stated that the discovery represented a potentially significant new development for the Fitton project, 25km north of Heathgate’s Beverley uranium mine, as well as for the region.

“[This] is one of the best uranium discoveries in the region since Beverley Four Mile in 2005,” Core managing director Stephen Biggins said.

The drilling intersected high-grade uranium mineralisation within the broader shear zone at the Scott Lee prospect, with 7 of the 10 drill holes drilled at the prospect reporting significant uranium results. Mineralisation at Scott Lee is open at depth and along strike in both directions, and Core reported that it believed there was potential for further uranium mineralisation away from the prospect, based on interpretation of magnetic and radiometric data of the area.

Core’s recently-concluded 2012 drilling program at Fitton totalled 1902m in 29 drill holes: the majority of which were drilled at Scott Lee.

Drilling focussed on magnetics targets, with many nearby uranium radiometric anomalies yet to be tested and drilled.

Final assays from the remaining 15 holes are expected before the end of the year, with further exploration and follow-up drilling scheduled for early 2013.

The next phase of drilling at Fitton will focus on improving the extent and grade of mineralisation intersected in the first pass program, and testing of any newly-identified target areas.