australia's identified mineral resources 2005 - Geoscience Australia

AUSTRALIA’S IDENTIFIED MINERAL RESOURCES 2005
At Western Australia’s other integrated bauxite mining and alumina refining operation, the Worsley
joint venture committed to a series of development capital projects designed to take advantage of
latent capacity in plant through a series of 28 packages of work estimated to cost US$192 million.
The result will be an increase in alumina production of 250 000 tonnes per annum to a capacity of
3.5 Mtpa. Commissioning and completion of the projects is expected in by the first quarter of 2006
with the resulting production ramp-up to be achieved by around mid-year.
Black Coal
Coal is a sedimentary rock of organic origin composed mainly of carbon. The higher rank black
coals are mainly used in the generation of electricity and the production of coke in the iron and
steel industry. Other uses include manufacture of cement and food processing and organic chemicals
prepared from by-products of coke making. Australia has a substantial black coal industry dominated
by New South Wales and Queensland. Locally significant operations occur at Collie (WA), Leigh
Creek (SA) and the Fingal Valley (Tas).
Resources
In-situ and recoverable EDR each increased by 5% in 2004 to 57.4 Gt and 40.4 Gt respectively.
This was due mainly to price increases and new mining methods that resulted in uneconomic coal
being reclassified as economic as at Togara North and Togara South. New economic deposits in
Queensland include Broughton, Isaac Plains and West Rolleston. Queensland (57.7%) and New
South Wales (38.5%) had the largest share of recoverable EDR.
In-situ paramarginal demonstrated resources (PDR) decreased by over 35% to 8.1 Gt and recoverable
PDR decreased by over 40% to 2.7 Gt due largely to the reclassification of a number of resources,
including Togara North and Togara South. In-situ and recoverable subeconomic demonstrated
resources (SDR) remained relatively unchanged at 12.6 Gt and 8.7 Gt respectively. Decreases in SDR
at the Mandalong, Munmorah and Myuna deposits were offset by increases in SDR at the Mannering
and Cordeaux deposits. In-situ and recoverable inferred resources remained almost unchanged at
85.5 Gt and 52.7 Gt respectively. The newly reported Anvil Hill and Athena inferred resources were
offset by decreases of inferred resources at other deposits such as Warkworth and Kestrel.
Accessible EDR
Nearly all black coal EDR is accessible with only a relatively small tonnage at Hill River (WA)
quarantined within State Reserves. The resource life of Accessible EDR (40.3 Gt) is greater than
100 years at current rates of production.
JORC Reserves
JORC reserves are 13.1 Gt or 32% of Accessible EDR. Included in this figure is Geoscience Australia’s
estimate for 19 operating mines, which do not report JORC reserves. This constitutes 2.5 Gt or about
6% of Accessible EDR. BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Xstrata Coal and Anglo Coal manage close to 70% of
JORC reserves in Australia. The resource life of JORC reserves is 35 years at current production.
Exploration
Data published by ABS show that exploration expenditure for coal in 2004 totalled $96.9 million,
an increase from $84.7 million in 2003. Expenditure in Queensland was $75.1 million (77.5% of total),
and $16.7 million in New South Wales (17.2% of total). Exploration also occurred in South Australia,
Western Australia and Victoria.
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Production
In 2004, Australia produced 375.2 Mt of raw coal (358.4 Mt in 2003), which yielded 298.0 Mt of
saleable coal (280.7 Mt in 2003). Black coal exports during the period amounted to 116.8 Mt of
coking coal (valued at $7.8 billion) and 106.9 Mt of steaming coal (valued at $5.5 billion). ABARE has
projected that Australia’s saleable production will grow to 364 Mt by 2009–10.