AUSTRALIA’S IDENTIFIED MINERAL RESOURCES 2009 AUSTRALIA’S IDENTIFIED MINERAL RESOURCES 2009 ­­Australian Government Geoscience Australia Resources, Energy and Tourism Portfolio Minister for Resources, Energy and Tourism: The Hon. the Hon Martin Ferguson AM, MP Geoscience Australia Chief Executive Officer: Dr Neil Williams © Commonwealth of Australia, 2008 This work is copyright. Apart from any fair dealings for the purposes of study, research, criticism, or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Copyright is the responsibility of the Chief Executive Officer, Geoscience Australia. Requests and enquiries should be directed to the Chief Executive Officer, Geoscience Australia, GPO Box 378, Canberra ACT 2601. ABN: 80 091 799 039. Geoscience Australia has tried to make the information in this product as accurate as possible. However, it does not guarantee that the information is totally accurate or complete. Therefore, you should not rely solely on this information when making a commercial decision. ISSN 1327-1466 Bibliographic reference: Geoscience Australia 2009. Australia’s Identified Mineral Resources 2009. Geoscience Australia, Canberra. FRONT COVER: Iron ore loading at Cape Lambert port facilities, Western Australia (Rio Tinto Iron Ore). DESI GN AND LAYOUT: Henry Pippan, Geoscience Australia AUSTRALIA’S IDENTIFIED MINERAL RESOURCES 2009 Foreword Geoscience Australia provides important information on Australia’s future mineral production capacity. Australia’s Identified Mineral Resources is an annual nation-wide assessment which takes a long term view of what is potentially economic. Data on mining company estimates of ore reserves, which are generally based on short to medium-term commercial considerations, are included for comparison. The assessment also includes evaluations of long-term trends in mineral resources, international rankings, summaries of significant exploration results, brief reviews of mining industry developments an analysis of mineral exploration expenditure across Australia and consideration of resource lives for major commodities. Comparable information on petroleum resources is published in another Geoscience Australia publication, Oil and Gas Resources of Australia. Australia’s Identified Mineral Resources provides information on Australia’s known mineral endowment, long term resource trends, the levels of exploration activity and industry developments. It provides an authoritative overview for developing government resources policies and programs and is also used by the industry, the investment sector and general community. Australia’s resource stocks remain healthy overall. Reflecting strong world demand for mineral resources, expansions in mine production of bauxite, coking coal, iron ore and other commodities continued in 2008. Despite the onset of the global financial crisis in the latter part of 2008, the mining industry still contributed substantively to Australia’s prosperity. Data from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) indicate that earnings from Australia’s minerals exports (excluding oil and gas) increased by 44% to $130.3 billion in 2008. The ability of Australia’s minerals sector to maintain its highly competitive base of world class mineral resources is dependent on effective exploration leading to the discovery of new world class ore deposits. Successful exploration outcomes rely heavily on continuing updates of pre-competitive geoscience data by government agencies. State-of-the-art geoscientific syntheses and integrated research are needed to reduce exploration risks in prospective frontier regions. Australia’s Identified Mineral Resources and other fundamental data on the minerals sector can be accessed through the online Atlas of Australia’s Mineral Resources, Mines and Processing Centres (www.australianminesatlas.gov.au). The atlas has a web-based geographic information system format and shows the location of mineral and energy resources, mines and production/processing centres. Neil Williams Chief Executive Officer Geoscience Australia i AUSTRALIA’S IDENTIFIED MINERAL RESOURCES 2009 Contents Foreword.................................................................... i Executive Summary . 1 Introduction . ................................................................. 3 Trends in Australia’s Economic Demonstrated Resources of major mineral commodities . ......... 6 COMMODITY REVIEWS Bauxite . 13 Black coal . 14 Brown coal . 21 Coal bed methane . 23 Coal to liquids . .............................................................. 25 Copper. .................................................................... 26 Diamond . 30 Gold . 31 Iron ore . ................................................................... 35 Lithium . 40 Magnesite. .................................................................. 42 Manganese ore . .............................................................. 43 Mineral sands . ............................................................... 45 Molybdenum . 50 Nickel . .................................................................... 51 Niobium. ................................................................... 55 Phosphate . 56 Platinum group elements . 59 Rare earths . ................................................................. 61 Shale oil. ................................................................... 64 Tantalum . 65 Thorium. ................................................................... 67 Tin. ....................................................................... 72 Tungsten . 74 Uranium. ................................................................... 75 Vanadium. .................................................................. 81 Zinc, lead, silver. ............................................................. 83 RESOURCE LIFE EXPLORATION Overview . .................................................................. 93 Review. .................................................................... 93 Exploration stage . 95 Exploration drilling. ........................................................... 95 Calendar year 2008. ........................................................... 96 ii Exploration outcomes . ......................................................... 96 World exploration. ............................................................ 96 Outlook for exploration . 97 OFFSHORE MINERAL EXPLORATION IN COMMONWEALTH WATERS . 97 APPENDICES Appendix 1: Abbreviations and acronyms . .......................................... 98 Appendix 2: National classification system for identified mineral resources. .................. 99 Appendix 3: Staff and Commodity Responsibilities: AIMR 2009 and related Projects . .......... 104 AUSTRALIA’S IDENTIFIED MINERAL RESOURCES 2009 TABLES Table 1: Australia’s resources of major minerals and world figures as at December 2008 Table 2: Australian gold production 2004 to 2008. Table 3: Estimated thorium resources by country. Table 4: World and Australia’s thorium resources according to deposit type (modified after OECD/NEA & IAEA (2008)) with Australia’s thorium resources expressed as recoverable resources after an overall reduction of 10% for mining and milling losses. Table 5: Australia’s uranium resources at December 2008 (reported under corresponding categories of NEA/IAEA and Australian national schemes). Table 6: Uranium resources in States and the Northern Territory at December 2008. Table 7: Olympic Dam Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves at June 2008. Table 8: Years of Accessible Economic Demonstrated Resources (AEDR) at the production level for the year (rounded to nearest 5 years) FIGURES Figure 1: Trends in Economic Demonstrated Resources (EDR) for major commodities since 1975 Figure 2: Australian mineral exploration expenditures by commodity in constant 2007–08 dollars (Based on ABS data deflated by Consumer Price Index series). Figure 3: Australian mineral exploration expenditure, excluding gold and base metals, in constant 2007–08 dollars (Based on ABS data deflated by Consumer Price Index series). Figure 4: Australian mineral exploration spending by commodity (Source: ABS). Figure 5: Australian mineral exploration spending by State (Source: ABS). Figure 6: Distribution of world non-ferrous mineral exploration budgets (excluding uranium) as reported by companies, 2008 (Source: Metals Economics Group). PHOTOGRAPHS Photo 1: West Angelas iron ore open cut mine, Western Australia (Rio Tinto Iron). Photo 2: Yarrabee coal mine, Queensland (Felix Resources Ltd). Photo 3: Coal loading at Newlands mine, Queensland (Xstrata plc). Photo 4: Iron ore mining at Frances Creek mine, Northern Territory (Territory Resources Ltd). Photo 5: Heavy mineral sands operation at Jacinth-Ambrosia deposit, Eucla Basin, South Australia (Iluka Resources Ltd). Photo 6: Monitoring groundwater quality at Beverley in situ recovery uranium mine, South Australia (Heathgate Resources Ltd). Photo 7: Semi-autogenous grinding mills at metallurgical processing plant, Century zinc-lead mine, north Queensland (Minerals and Metals Group Ltd). Photo 8: Copper smelting at Mount Isa, north Queensland (Xstrata plc). Photo 9: Exploration drilling at Weld Range iron ore deposit, Western Australia (Sinosteel Midwest Corporation Ltd). iii AUSTRALIA’S IDENTIFIED MINERAL RESOURCES 2009 AUSTRALIA’S IDENTIFIED MINERAL RESOURCES 2009 Executive Summary Australia’s Economic Demonstrated Resources (EDR) for the following