australia's identified mineral resources 2004 - Geoscience Australia

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.
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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.