These two articles by The Advertiser and The Australian have different takes on the information, and even some of the information is contradicting.
Election twist to Roxby expansion plan
CHRISTOPHER RUSSELL, BUSINESS EDITOR
October 31, 2008 11:30pm
BHP Billiton wants government approval for its multi-billion-dollar expansion of Olympic Dam a month before the next state election.
In the firmest detail yet of its timetable, the mining company said yesterday it intended to begin digging the open-pit expansion in 2010 if it gets ministerial approval in February that year.
With voters going to the polls on March 20, 2010, the State Government will be under pressure to sign off on the project – the biggest economic development in South Australia's history.
BHP told the stock exchange yesterday it would present its environmental impact statement on the expansion to the Government before the end of 2008.
The statement will be made public in April or May, 2009.
A spokesman for Treasurer Kevin Foley said BHP Billiton's announcement was "consistent" with the miner's private briefings.
"The Government expects the environmental impact statement produced by BHP Billiton to be reviewed and finalised within the timeline indicated," the spokesman said.
SA Chamber of Mines and Energy chief executive Jason Kuchel welcomed the announcement. "This sends a clear message to all those who may have tried to cast doubt on the project," he said.
"From the chamber's perspective, we were never in any doubt about it proceeding."
One of the key issues to be debated with the Government is how much ore would be smelted here and how much would be exported as a concentrate.
As reported by The Advertiser in December last year, Mr Foley has said the Government was prepared to compromise on the issue.
'While much of the copper would be exported as concentrate, less than 20 per cent of the uranium would be shipped in that form, with 80 per cent processed at Olympic Dam, BHP said yesterday.
Opposition mineral resources spokesman David Ridgway said there was "great anticipation" about the project. "The Opposition fully supports BHP Billiton's development of a staged timetable for the expansion," he said.
"The economic benefits for SA are exciting and with BHP Billiton planning to build major infrastructure many thousands of South Australians are set to benefit."
BHP Billiton's president of uranium and Olympic Dam development, Graeme Hunt, said the expansion would transform the state's economy.
A Deloitte report, which BHP will publish with its environmental impact statement, says the mine will increase state gross product by 9 per cent by 2040. "More than 80 per cent of the value-add from this expansion will remain in SA," Mr Hunt said.
About 4000 workers are now employed at the copper, uranium and gold mine.
The mine workforce is expected to more than double to 8500 while the construction workforce will peak at more than 6500. This will provide an enormous boost to the dormitory town of Roxby Downs as well as the whole state.
BHP is in the "pre-feasibility" stage where it decides on an expansion plan. It has not updated its cost estimates for several years but speculation has ranged from $6 billion to $30 billion.
Olympic Dam will be expanded in stages with Stage 1 – the optimisation of the existing underground operation – to be in production by 2013.
If Government approvals are obtained and the BHP board gives the go-ahead on the open pit, digging will start in 2010.
It will then take four to five years removing about a million tonnes a day of overburden to reach the ore.
The open-pit mine will be a 100-year project, creating a hole 1.22km deep and about 6.5km long.
By contrast, the Escondida mine in Chile will be 885m deep when exhausted while the Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah, which began production in 1906, is 1.2km deep and about 4km long.
BHP delays opening of world's biggest pit
Matt Chambers | November 01, 2008
BHP Billiton has pushed back the start date for its giant Olympic Dam copper and uranium expansion until at least 2015.
This was to include digging the world's biggest open-pit mine.
In a long-awaited presentation, the mining giant was tight-lipped on development costs, which have been tipped by analysts to be $15 billion, and indicated it would not reveal them until the project was approved, in 2010 at the earliest.
BHP's ambitious plans for the deposit will see it ramp up in three major stages over 10 or 11 years, with the planned, huge pit eventually eating into the existing underground mine and mill around 2025.
The end result would be a pit 7km long, 5km wide and 1km deep that dwarfs the current contenders for world's biggest pit -- the Escondida copper mine in Chile and Bingham Canyon copper mine in the US.
The earliest start date of 2015 pushes first production back from a previous forecast of 2013 or 2014 given in late 2006.
The miner took analysts and investors around the operations yesterday and released notes of the presentation that yielded more information on timing, but nothing on costs.
Rio Tinto, which is the subject of a $US90 billion ($136 billion) takeover bid from BHP, is targeting Olympic Dam as it tries to secure a better bid than BHP's 3.4-for-1 scrip offer.
Rio sees the project, which will take five years of earthmoving just to get to the orebody, as long, expensive and risky and says shareholders should know the cost of it if they are considering swapping their shares for BHP's.
BHP views the expansion as being at too early a stage to include in any of its growth targets.
In June, BHP chief executive Marius Kloppers ensured yesterday's presentation would be closely watched when he flagged it and said it would include "a very complete update of where we stand on that investment decision (Olympic Dam) and exactly what we want to do."
BHP repeated plans for a staged production increase to 730,000 tonnes a year of copper, from about 180,000 now and 19,000 tonnes of uranium from 4000, but did not give a timeline for each phase. The first stage will boost copper production to about 350,000 tonnes, the second to 540,000 and the final one to 730,000 at 2025 at the earliest.
The company plans to ship concentrate to China for smelting through Adelaide and Darwin, with 80 per cent of the uranium processed at Olympic Dam.
BHP said government approval was not expected until 2010, back from an earlier target of 2008. An optimisation study would bring copper production to 200,000 tonnes in 2013.
BHP said the new mill, when ramped up fully, would have a throughput of 60 million tonnes of ore and revenue per tonne of ore of more than three times that of Escondida.
BHP also flagged its plans to quickly develop the Yeelirrie uranium deposit in Western Australia, now that a Liberal state government not opposed to uranium mining is in power.
BHP is looking at a 10 to 12 year operation and said it would upgrade the feasibility study on the resource of about 35,000 tonnes of uranium oxide to determine the best way to develop it.
The potential upside to this argy-bargy is that the SA Govt *might* approve the mine expansion much earlier, could even be early-2009 instead of feb-2010 as stated below...
