australia's identified mineral resources 2004 - Geoscience Australia

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AUSTRALIA’S IDENTIFIED MINERAL RESOURCES 2004 Industry Developments Tantalum miner, Tantalum Australia reached an agreement to acquire two tantalum/niobium projects in the Gasgoyne and Kimberley regions of Western Australia. The Gascoyne project is located 120 km NNE of Gascoyne Junction. The project tenements comprise two granted mining leases of 3 km 2 and three exploration licences. The Brockman project, held by Aztec Resources, is situated in the East Kimberley, 18 km SE of Halls Creek. The project contains indicated and inferred resource of 50 Mt at 4400 ppm Nb, 270 ppm Ta and 1240 ppm Y. Tantalum Australia has the right to earn 60% of the Brockman project by spending $1.5 million on exploration within three years. Phosphate Australia’s commercial resources of phosphate are in Queensland (Phosphate Hill, 150 km south of Mt Isa) and on the Indian Ocean Territory of Christmas Island. Phosphate Hill is a world-class rock phosphate resource that is close to surface and easy to access and mine. The rock is ideal for the manufacture of high analysis fertilisers for domestic and international use. The first di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) fertiliser utilising Phosphate Hill ore was produced in late 1999. Christmas Island is a source of high quality rock phosphate, which is exported to the Asia–Pacific and southeast Asian region. Christmas Island rock phosphate products are used widely in the palm oil sector of this region, and sales of higher-grade rock phosphate are made to Australian manufacturers of mono-ammonium phosphate (MAP) fertiliser. DAP and MAP have different ratios of phosphorous and nitrogen, and have slightly different applications. Both products are generally produced as granules with a diameter of between 2–4 mm. DAP (20% P and 18% N) is used on broad-acre crops such as cereal, legume, fodder, horticultural and row crops, and dairy and newly-established pastures. MAP (22% P and 10% N) assists with early crop growth and enhances phosphorous uptake in broad-acre crops. Resources EDR of phosphate rock remained unchanged in 2003 compared to the previous year. All EDR is sedimentary phosphate rock (phosphorites), with an average grade of about 23–24% P 2 O 5 at Phosphate Hill. There is no publicly available information on Christmas Island’s phosphate resources. Geoscience Australia, however, has reasonably detailed knowledge of this deposit and known resources remaining within the existing mining lease on the island. Most of Australia’s demonstrated resources of phosphate occur in the Georgina Basin and are classified as paramarginal. Two deposits, Swan and Emu, occur within carbonatite at Mount Weld, 26 km southeast of Laverton (WA), where a phosphate-rich zone has formed by the solution and weathering of a primary carbonatite. 58 The bulk of Australia’s inferred phosphate resources are in phosphorites in the Georgina Basin and are distributed between Queensland and Northern Territory. Minor inferred resources also occur in Western Australia. Exploration Data relating to exploration for phosphate are not available. Production In 2003, WMC Resources’ Queensland Fertiliser operations at Phosphate Hill produced 759 856 t DAP and 162 121 t MAP. Phosphate Resources’ Christmas Island operations shipped 518 500 t of rock phosphate and 67 237 t of dust product in 2003.
AUSTRALIA’S IDENTIFIED MINERAL RESOURCES 2004 World Ranking Australia’s EDR of phosphate rock comprises less than 1% of the world’s total EDR of 18 Gt, which occurs principally as sedimentary marine phosphorites. Industry Developments During 2003, WMC Resources continued to increase rates of production for DAP and MAP, announcing a record total production of 921 977 t of fertilizer for the year. The company expects continuing production improvements during 2004 with planned output of 960 000 t. At this rate of production the life of the Phosphate Hill mine, based on current ore reserves, is expected to be at least 35 years. Shale Oil Oil shale is organic-rich shale that yields substantial quantities of oil by heating and distillation. One tonne of oil shale may contain over 200 litres of oil. The organic material in oil shale is kerogen, which can be a precursor to conventional oil reservoirs given appropriate conditions in the crust. Australian oil shale deposits of commercial interest are predominantly in a series of narrow and deep extensional-basins near Gladstone and Mackay in central Queensland. These are thick Tertiary lacrustine (lake-formed) deposits that are relatively easy to mine. They contrast with generally harder carbonate bearing oil shales (marls) found elsewhere in the world that are more difficult to mine and process. Resources Up until recently, all ten of the central Queensland oil shale deposits were held by Southern Pacific Petroleum (SPP), either solely or with joint venture partners. The last systematic review of the in situ mineralisation for these ten oil shale deposits was completed by SPP in 2000 to comply with the JORC Code. There was a minor revision made to these reserves and resource estimates by SPP in 2002 and these results are incorporated in this assessment. Australia has 4.6 GL (29 million barrels) of shale oil economic demonstrated resources. This could increase significantly if the research and development demonstration-scale processing of shale oil at the Stuart deposit near Gladstone were to lead to a commercial plant. Paramarginal and submarginal demonstrated resources are 202.1 GL (1.3 billion barrels) and 3719 GL (23.4 billion barrels) respectively. The demonstration plant at Stuart has produced over 1.5 million barrels of oil. The shale tonnage processed was small in comparison to the overall resource, so there is no change in the reserves estimate at the reported level of precision. Production Oil production at the Stuart demonstration plant for the 2003 calendar year was up 94% to 100 ML (629 000 barrels). The oil production rate increased to over 3000 barrels per stream day in 2003. The demonstration plant design ore grade is 172 litres per tonne at zero moisture (LT0M). The retorting has been tested with a range of input grades from 152 LT0M in July and August 2002 to 189 LT0M. Recovery rates have improved from 70% to a current recovery of 87%. The oil products are Ultra Low Sulphur Naphtha (ULSN) 55–60% and Light Fuel Oil (LFO) 40–45%. Oil product sales in 2003 included 324 000 barrels of ULSN and 261 000 barrels of LFO. The ULSN, which can be used to make petrol, diesel and jet fuel, has a sulphur content of less than 1 ppm. To put this into perspective, petrol in Australia currently contains about 500 ppm sulphur. Regulatory guidelines are in place to reduce this to 150 ppm for petrol by 2005 and to 50 ppm for diesel by 2006. 59 World Ranking The 2001 survey of energy resources by the World Energy Council reported that Jordan, Australia and Morocco have the largest deposits of ‘proved oil shale in place’. The same survey also reported that production of oil from shale for 1999 was recorded in Brazil at 239 million litres and Estonia at 185 million litres.
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