#Official Mining Thread

[crawf]

mmm money

[jimmy_2486]

Mann this is awesomee!!

I feel like going down there and shoveling it out myself....i cbf waiting 5-6 years, I want the state to be rich NOW!! lol

Could you image how good our PT and roads will become when we become loaded!! The only thing that really sucks hard in this city is the lack of infrastructure, but I think this is our ticket out of that!! Pretty soon the old saying "Our State cant afford to fund that.." wont be heard of anymore!!

Wouldn't even surprise me if our population started to overtake Perth's after the boom starts!!

[AG]

From the Business section of The Australian:

Trillion-dollar mine for BHPFont Size: Decrease Increase Print Page: Print Andrew Trounson | September 27, 2007
BHP Billiton is sitting on more than $1 trillion worth of copper, uranium and gold at its gigantic Olympic Dam deposit in South Australia, after yesterday reporting a near doubling in ore resources.

The increase is set to support mining at Olympic Dam and the tiny town of Roxby Downs, 560km north of Adelaide, for 100 years or more. It is likely to encourage incoming BHP boss Marius Kloppers to perhaps double the size of a planned expansion.

BHP Billiton is, however, facing a huge construction bill that could blow out to as much as $US15billion ($17.2 billion), according to analysts.

There is speculation that the expanded size of the ore body and growing construction costs for mining projects globally will encourage Mr Kloppers to maximise the size of any expansion.

"The potential to expand the size of the project could be an opportunity to mitigate the clear capital and operating cost pressures affecting all projects globally," Macquarie Equities resource analyst Brendan Harris said.

BHP had originally been considering doubling copper production at the mine, but brokerage Merrill Lynch is tipping production to more than quadruple to 1 million tonnes a year of copper.

Such an expansion would also yield 30,000 tonnes a year of uranium oxide and 500,000 ounces a year of gold. Merrill has forecast the cost of such an expansion at $US10 billion to $US15 billion.

Merrill speculated, however, that BHP may seek to maximise value by spinning off the gold and silver production into a separately listed company, or selling it as a gold royalty. Pure precious metal assets commonly attract a higher market valuation than base metal mining assets.

Merrill calculated that such a move could add $US2.2 billion to net present value, or the sum of future cash flow.

In the new resource figures BHP has identified a discrete gold-only resource amounting to 4.4 million ounces could be worth as much as $500 million in a separately listed vehicle, according to Deutsche Bank, but BHP is treading carefully at Olympic Dam as it assesses the development options.

First production from any expansion isn't expected until 2013. Completion of a pre-feasibility study on the project isn't expected until mid-2008.

Previous owner WMC regularly struggled to make the most of the massive but complex ore body, where the ore must be mined deep underground. A vast chemical complex has been created above ground to separate and process the copper, uranium and gold.

Mr Kloppers is keen to simplify Olympic Dam, which will be converted into a massive open pit mining operation. More controversially, BHP is assessing options to scale back value-added processing at Olympic Dam and sell the copper and ore concentrate containing some uranium, rather than smelting copper on site.

Both state and federal governments oppose that plan.

"We are trying to mature a number of technologies that are going to allow us to take major pieces of kit out of the footprint of that asset, and again we're planning for 100 years here, so we want to make sure we do it right," Mr Kloppers said in August.

BHP has spent about $US50 million in the past 12 months drilling the ore body, which it still hasn't fully defined. Yesterday it increased its estimate of mineral-bearing ore resources at Olympic Dam to 7.7 billion tonnes from 4.4 billion tonnes.

South Australian premier Mike Rann said the increased resource figures were "about the best news economically that this state has ever received".

"About 17 rigs have been drilling continuously and still cannot find the extent of the resource - they can't find the perimeters, they can't find an end to the depth of it," Mr Rann said.
Mr Kloppers has said Olympic Dam could be the world's second-biggest base metal discovery behind the Norilsk nickel find in Russia. Resources of contained copper have jumped 38 per cent to 67 million tonnes, of uranium 27 per cent to 2.2 million tonnes and of gold 11 per cent to 79 million ounces.

The deposit is the world's single-largest for uranium and among the top five for gold. Copper is the main earner at Olympic Dam, then uranium.

BHP shares fell 3 per cent to $43.16 after rising almost 10 per cent earlier in the week, partly as a result of hype over the looming resource announcement.

[UrbanSG]

A few more quotes from today.

From the.age.com.au:

BHP wins gold at Olympic Dam, but the market waits

"After the latest resource upgrade, Olympic Dam accounts for 43 per cent of the world's economic uranium reserves".

and this from the Herald Sun:

The real gold is copper and uranium

"IT'S nice to have $65 billion worth of gold.
Unfortunately for BHP Billiton it's not in the vaults of the Reserve Bank but deep in the ground in outback South Australia.
Fortunately though it sits in all that dirt and rock along with over $600 billion worth of copper and another $500 billion worth of uranium. Australia's first $1 trillion (plus) resources resource".

[Shuz]

$1 trillion dollars... I don't even know how many billions that is? 100 or 1000 billion?

[Cruise]

Mann this is awesomee!!

I feel like going down there and shoveling it out myself....i cbf waiting 5-6 years, I want the state to be rich NOW!! lol

Could you image how good our PT and roads will become when we become loaded!! The only thing that really sucks hard in this city is the lack of infrastructure, but I think this is our ticket out of that!! Pretty soon the old saying "Our State cant afford to fund that.." wont be heard of anymore!!

Wouldn't even surprise me if our population started to overtake Perth's after the boom starts!!

calm down mate patience is a virtue.

[Cruise]

1 trillon dollars is
1,000,000,000,000

so id say thats 1 thousand billion

[jimmy_2486]

Well considering the States yearly GSP is about 60 billion a year, and the whole countries yearly GDP is 925 billion a year. That is a shittttt loadddd of minerals!!

Also here is an interesting fact... the State of California alone has a higher GDP than our whole country with a GDP of over 1 trillion US.

[AtD]

California also has 150% as many people as Australia

[Bulldozer]

I think it's important to remember that Mike Rann was there in the background when Labor opposed the startup of Olympic Dam. Olympic Dam wouldn't exist today if it weren't for Norm Foster, who crossed the floor to vote for it. He was expelled from the Labor party because of it.

Why is Rann so for it now and for mining Uranium, but so against using it?

[Shuz]

Well, I beleive behind those glary eyes, eccentric Kiwi accent and over-sized ego of his - he's just an idiot, a really good one at that though. Like a chameleon.

[Howie]

Uranium explorers in merger deal
Article from: Herald Sun


Cameron England

September 29, 2007 12:00am

TORO Energy's $400 million merger with Nova Energy moved a step closer yesterday, with major shareholder Agincourt Resources tipping in its 57 per cent stake yesterday.

The move puts Toro's interest in Nova at 60.2 per cent, giving it a commanding blocking stake, should any other offer be considered.

This is unlikely, however, with Toro and Nova sharing Oxiana as a major shareholder, with Oxiana picking up its Nova stake when it bought Agincourt in April.

Fellow major shareholder Argonaut, which owns 5.96 per cent of Toro, has said "in the absence of a superior offer and subject to acceptances from Nova shareholders causing Toro's relevant interest in Nova shares to be at least 80 per cent (inclusive of Argonaut)".

Toro is offering 5.5 of its shares for every Nova share, in a deal which would create one of Australia's largest uranium explorers, based in Adelaide.

Toro managing director Greg Hall said at the time the merger was announced that consolidation in the uranium industry was sorely needed.

"There has been $8.9 billion worth of uranium mergers and acquisitions globally in the first half of this year compared to just $400 million worth in all of 2006," he said.

"The heightened 2007 consolidation has included more than $1.02 billion of activity in the Australian uranium sector.

"The Australian uranium sector (excluding Paladin and ERA) is valued at less than $2.8 billion and future target companies and uranium deposits will become less available.

"Without the necessary market capitalisation to participate, both Toro and Nova will miss growth opportunities, whereas the merged group will have the scale to play an active role in sector consolidation in parallel with a greater ability to fast-track project development."

Toro is focused on South Australia and the Northern Territory while Nova has SA, NT and Western Australian prospects. Nova has also begun a pre-feasibility study at its Lake Way deposit in WA.

Both companies also have African interests, with Toro looking for uranium in Morocco and Nova in Namibia.

Toro shareholders will vote on whether to approve the merger at a meeting on Friday.

Adelaide's Minotaur Exploration, with 36 million shares, will control 7.3 per cent of the new company if the merger goes ahead.

Toro closed steady at 81 and Nova was up 25 at $3.70.

Hopefully it'll mean Toro is looking for more floorspace in the Adelaide CBD.

[UrbanSG]

More good news. I would say there is still a lot of oil to find out that way. I also heard something about a year ago about new exploration occurring in NW SA too and that there could be a big discovery out that way eventually as well. Article from news.com.au:

South Australia oilfield find worth a cool $1 billion
By Cameron England
October 02, 2007 07:00am

A BILLION-DOLLAR oilfield has been discovered in South Australia's Far North, the find touted as one of the biggest of its kind on the Australian mainland.

Closely following the announcement by BHP Billiton of a massive copper and gold resource at Olympic Dam, Queensland-based Innamincka Petroleum said yesterday it had discovered 120 million barrels of oil in the Cooper Basin.

The discovery opens a new frontier in the resources boom in the SA desert and opens the way for yet more exploration and development.

The $1 billion price tag is a conservative figure.

At yesterday's oil price of $US81.64 per barrel, the field would be worth more than $10 billion, although oil fields typically give up only about a third of their contained oil.

Depending on the recoverable amount, the find could be on the scale of Santos's remaining Cooper Basin oil reserves, which stood at 39 million barrels of oil in the company's 2006 annual report. But even a 10 per cent recovery of the oil would be worth more than $1 billion at current prices.

The State Government stands to receive a windfall, with petroleum royalties set at 10 per cent of the sales value, after various development costs are removed.

Premier Mike Rann yesterday welcomed the find.

"Last week, in announcing that Olympic Dam had become the largest base metals deposit in the world, I made the point that in terms of mining, South Australia is the land of giants," he said.

"What many people don't realise is that South Australia's oil industry is thriving and exploration for oil in our state is growing significantly."

Innamincka Petroleum said yesterday it had shown that its Flax and Juniper 1 oil discoveries were connected underground, leading to a "substantial increase in the assessed in-place oil resource". "There is now a reasonable basis for concluding the Flax and Juniper discoveries will prove to be one of the largest onshore oilfields in Australia," the company said.

Innamincka's shares jumped a staggering 283 per cent on the news, closing $1.105 higher at $1.495.

Innamincka managing director Ross Wecker said there was the potential to find substantially more oil, but at this stage the company was focused on getting the wells into production.

Mr Wecker said the company did not yet know what the recovery rates would be.

He said the company was predicting 1000 barrels of oil a day from five wells by the middle of next year.

The company will now employ consultants to calculate a resource figure for the field.

That would allow the company to raise money to construct a pipeline to Moomba and do more drilling, he said.

[SRW]

Great news, especially since there seems to be more to come.

[jimmy_2486]

This is insane....when will it end!!!

We will have so much minerals that we wont be able to keep up with whats coming out of the ground.

We should change our welcome sign to....."Welcome to SA...did you bring a shovel??"