australia's identified mineral resources 2005 - Geoscience Australia

AUSTRALIA’S IDENTIFIED MINERAL RESOURCES 2005
Production and Resource Life
Australia’s production of selected mineral resources, concentrates and metals for 2004 are presented
in Table 4. Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) reported that mineral
commodities for which mine production rose significantly in 2004 compared with 2003 were
manganese ores and concentrates (up 33%), uranium (18%), iron ore and pellets (11%), lead ores
and concentrates (10%), copper ores and concentrates (6%), and black coal (5%). Australia’s major
mineral commodities that recorded production decreases in 2004 include diamonds (down 34%),
refined lead and bullion (15%), refined zinc (14%), iron and steel (12%) and gold (9%).
ABARE reported that Australia’s export earnings from mineral resources rose to $58.3 billion in 2004,
an increase of $5.7 billion or 11% compared with 2003. This stronger performance mainly reflected
higher prices for many of the major minerals exported (eg coal, iron ore, nickel, copper), largely as
a result of increased demand from China.
To sustain these export earnings and maintain Australia’s position as one of the world’s leading
minerals producers, resources need to be discovered and developed for production at rates sufficient
to meet demand. To facilitate assessment of the future supply capability of identified resources, ratios
of AEDR to current mine production have been provided in the commodity reviews above, as an
indicator of the resource life. This indicator can change quite rapidly, for example with significant
changes in production rates and metal prices. Iron ore provides an example of how resource life can
vary markedly over a short period, with increasing production in response to growing demand from
Asia being a major factor contributing to the life of iron ore resources halving from 125 years in 1995
to around 60 years in 2004.
AEDR of other bulk mineral commodities can sustain current rates of mine production on average
for the following approximate periods: black coal 100 years, bauxite 80 years, manganese ore 20 years
and brown coal 450 years. Ratios of AEDR to current mine production for other minerals give
approximate resource lives (years) of 70 for sulphide nickel, 380 for laterite nickel. 50 for copper,
95 for ilmenite, 90 for rutile and 50 for zircon.
Resource life duration for gold (about 22 years at current rates of production), lead (less than 30
years) and zinc (less than 25 years) are amongst the lowest. Gold price increases over many years
have contributed to increasing expenditure on gold exploration since 1980. Despite the fact that there
has been a progressive increase in Australia’s EDR of gold since the mid-1980s, there is still a need
for ongoing successful gold exploration in the short and medium terms to discover sufficient
resources to maintain this commodity as one of Australia’s main exports.
Similarly, there is a need for significant new discoveries of lead and zinc in the not too distant future
to sustain production at current levels beyond the next 25 years, when almost all existing base
metal mines will have closed. Further, there is usually a period of about 10 years between the initial
discovery of a deposit and the commencement of production for large lead-zinc projects. The success
of fine grinding technology has allowed the economic extraction of base metals from the McArthur
River and Mt Isa deposits and resulted in increases in EDR. There is, however, a need to discover
and develop new high quality, metallurgically attractive lead-zinc deposits.
75