australia's identified mineral resources 2005 - Geoscience Australia

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AUSTRALIA’S IDENTIFIED MINERAL RESOURCES 2005 Hay Point and Dalrymple Bay coal export terminals, Queensland (Prime Infrastructure Management Ltd). In New South Wales at the Port of Newcastle, Port Waratah Coal Services (PWCS) has submitted preliminary plans to expand capacity from 89 to 120 Mtpa. The first stage to 100 Mtpa would be commissioned in late 2007. PWCS introduced a Capacity Distribution System in March 2004 to allocate coal supply chain capacity between coal producers to cap the tonnage producers could export. The system was authorised by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to reduce the queue of vessels waiting off Newcastle. A new group, Newcastle Terminal Developments, is proposing a three stage $400 million terminal development with an ultimate capacity of 45 Mtpa. The initial 15 Mtpa development would cost $200 million. 24 Queensland Rail is constructing a $230 million 110 km rail spur from Blackwater to the new Rolleston coal mine in Central Queensland. The Queensland Government is planning an expansion of the coal rail system to 202 Mtpa by 2010. In New South Wales, the Australian Rail Track Corporation is planning to invest $152 million over the next five years to upgrade the 450 km of track and signalling in the Hunter Valley network to lift capacity from 85 to 102 Mtpa by 2008. In August 2004 a number of coal producers in the Hunter Valley established the Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group with the aim of ensuring that there is adequate long term capacity in the Hunter Valley export coal supply chain. The New South Wales Government awarded White Mining Ltd (now owned by Felix Resources) an Exploration Licence over the Moorlarben coal tender area located 30 km northeast of Mudgee. The deposit contains about 300 Mt of in situ thermal coal of which 26 Mt is available for open-cut mining. During 2004 the Government changed the coal royalty rate from a fixed royalty of $1.70/t or $2.20/t for open-cuts to an ad valorem rate of 6% or 7% for open-cuts.
AUSTRALIA’S IDENTIFIED MINERAL RESOURCES 2005 INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENTS – RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT In March 2004, the COAL21 National Action Plan was announced. It aims to reduce or eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from the use of coal in Australia’s electric power generation industry. The Plan identifies a number of suitable technologies including coal gasification and carbon dioxide capture and underground storage (geosequestration). Australian Black Coal producers pay 5 cents per saleable tonne to fund the Australian Coal Association Research Program (ACARP), which aims to research, develop and demonstrate technologies that lead to safe, sustainable production and utilisation of coal. The Centre for Low Emission Technology has the primary focus on research and development of new generation low emission electricity generation technologies. An additional focus will be to develop technologies to improve the performance of existing coal fired power stations such as oxy-firing and coal-renewable hybrid technologies. The Western Australian Government is investigating establishing a Clean Coal Centre of Excellence at Collie to conduct research into clean coal technologies. Brown Coal Brown coal or lignite has a much lower carbon and higher moisture content than black coal. Its main use is in the generation of electricity. Other uses include the production of water gas, industrial carbon and briquettes for heating. In Australia, deposits of brown coal are Tertiary in age (15–50 million years) and occur in all states. There are substantial resources in Victoria (the only state that mines brown coal), and in particular the La Trobe Valley, where four mines in major shallow deposits provide fuel to mine mouth power stations that generate much of the state’s electricity. At Morwell brown coal is used to make briquettes for industrial and domestic heating. Resources Recoverable EDR for 2004 was 37.5 Gt, unchanged from 2003. Recoverable PDR, SDR and inferred resources were also the same at 39.0 Gt, 16.3 Gt and 100.8 Gt respectively. Victoria accounts for over 96% of Australia’s identified resources of brown coal. All EDR is in Victoria and just under 90% of the total EDR is in the La Trobe Valley. Accessible EDR Approximately 80% of brown coal EDR is accessible. Quarantined resources include the APM Mill site, which has a 50 year mining ban that commenced in 1980, the Holey Plains State Park and the Morwell township area. The resource life of accessible EDR of 30.0 Gt is close to 450 years. JORC Reserves Reported brown coal resources estimates do not comply with the JORC Code. Geoscience Australia’s assessment of brown coal at the operating mines is based on published information. Reserves are assessed at about 2.1 Gt with 70% being at Loy Yang. The resource life of published reserves is over 30 years. Exploration Data relating to exploration for brown coal specifically are not available nationally. However, the Victorian Department of Primary Industries reported in 2003–04 that $1.2 million was spent on brown coal exploration and $145 million on brown coal mining development. 25 Production Australian brown coal production in 2003–04 totalled 66.3 Mt (valued at $531 million) all of which was from Victoria. The La Trobe Valley mines of Yallourn (16.6 Mt), Hazelwood (19.1 Mt) and Loy Yang (29.6 Mt) produce about 98% of Australia’s brown coal. Locally significant brown coal operations occur at Anglesea (1.1 Mt) and Maddingley (18 kt).
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