DISCOVERY V I C T O R I A ’ S
E A R T H
R E S O U R C E S
J O U R N A L
M A Y
1 9 9 8
VARIAN ADVERT (SEE LAST ISSUE)
INSIDE THIS ISSUE •
NEW BOOST FOR VIMP
•
COMPETITIVE VICTORIA
•
$60M OIL SEARCH
DISCOVERY V I C T O R I A’ S
E A RT H
R E S O U R C E S
J O U R N A L
M AY
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contents FOSTERVILLE SHAPES UP FOR GOLD CROWN
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The race is on for the role as Victoria’s top gold producer.
NEW $60M DRILLING PROGRAM FOR BASS STRAIT
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Three new explorers join the field.
CANADIAN EXPOSURE
6
Victorian industry goes on show at Toronto.
ITS FLOWING GOLD
8
Alliance Gold Mines is using new search techniques.
VIMP WINS A 3-YEAR EXTENSION
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Another boost for oil, gas and mining exploration.
FOREST AGREEMENT MAINTAINS ACCESS
OLEX CABLES ADVERT (SEE FIRST ISSUE)
cover picture
10
Miners are clear winners in the Central Highlands RFA.
SMALL MINERS HAVE THEIR SAY
10 Perseverance Mining has changed the face of gold mining in Victoria, dramatically expanding its gold production from oxide resources with output set to grow when the company brings its innovative sulphide project into production.
PMAV flags its concerns on mining issues.
VIC OFFERS MORE, AND CAN WEATHER THE ASIAN CRISIS
17
A special report on our competitive advantages.
TREASURY VAULTS TO HOUSE GOLD
21
Displaying the history of gold.
SEPARATION SKILLS GIVE MINE NEW LIFE
22
New ore processing technology boosts the Costerfield mine.
STRONG INTEREST EXPECTED FOR TEN NEW OIL AREAS
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Bidding opens for new permit areas.
NEW POWER GENERATION TECHNOLOGY AIMS AT WORLD MARKET
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New options are being developed for the brown coal industry.
regular features GOVERNMENT EXTENDS VIMP TO 2001
DISCLAIMER: This publication may be of assistance to you, but the State of Victoria and its officers do not guarantee that the publication is without flaw of any kind or is wholly appropriate for your particular purposes and therefore disclaims all liability for any error, loss or other consequence which may arise from you relying on any information in this publication.
7
Deputy Premier, Pat McNamara, welcomes extra funding.
SIR HUMPHREY HAS HAD HIS DAY
11
MPV’S David Lea challenges some ‘sacred cows’.
INDUSTRY NEWS
Minerals and Petroleum Victoria acknowledges contributions made by private enterprise. Acceptance of these contributions, however, does not endorse or imply endorsement by the Department of Natural Resources and Environment of any product or service offered by the contributors.
12
What’s new in the Victorian industry.
RESOURCE MAP
14
All photographs, maps, charts, tables and written information in this publication are copyright under the Copyright Act and may not be reproduced by any process whatsoever without the written permission of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment.
A graphic overview of Victoria’s mineral, oil and gas resources.
MINERAL LICENCES
16
The latest on exploration licences.
© Minerals and Petroleum Victoria 1998.
Published quarterly on behalf of the Minerals and Petroleum Division of the Department of Natural Resources & Environment by RBA Communications, 86 Cooloongatta Rd, Camberwell Vic 3124 Tel: (03) 9889 1094 Fax: (03) 9889 9997 EMail:
[email protected] Editor: Ian Howarth Advertising: Watts Media, 1396 Malvern Rd, Tooronga, Vic 3146 Tel: (03) 9822 4461 Fax: (03) 9822 9192. Distribution enquires to Chandri Corray, Manager Marketing Development, Minerals and Petroleum Division, Department of Natural Resources & Environment, Level 15, 8 Nicholson St, East Melbourne, Vic, 3002, Tel: (03) 9637 8532 Fax: (03) 9637 8118. Website:
Australia Post Print Publication PP349472/00128. ISSN Number 13282409.
1
SPECIAL FEATURE
Fosterville shapes up for Perseverance Corp’s Fosterville gold mine, 22 km east of Bendigo, is gearing up to become Victoria’s largest gold mine, overtaking the State’s gold industry stalwart, the Stawell mine.
A
move to develop a new biological oxidation plant at Fosterville to process higher grade sulphide ore is likely to lift production beyond that of Stawell, giving Victoria’s gold industry a much bigger profile in the national industry. Perseverance is currently treating one million tonnes of ore a year for production of 38,000 ounces. However, in the past year the company has made major strides towards its aim of developing systems to process the richer, but more complex sulphide ore which underlies much of its current oxide ore. After the latest round of exploration drilling, Perseverance has lifted its sulphide ore gold resource to 964,000 ounces, increasing the company’s total gold resource to 1.3 million ounces. And while Perseverance is treating relatively low grade oxide ore, the scale and efficiency of the mining operation has allowed the company to slash its production cash costs to just $A319 an ounce, still comfortably below the international gold price.
Right: Perseverance Mining now produces 80,000 ounces of gold a year using modern truck and shovel mining techniques. Top: Drilling on the Fosterville leases has now delineated well over one million ounces in both oxide and sulphide resources. Above: Diamond drilling has helped Perseverance lift it’s total gold resources to 1.3 million ounces.
During a presentation to Mining Week participants Perseverance’s exploration and development director, Chris Roberts, told delegates the company has produced a total of 146,000 ounces from Fosterville in its latest mining campaign. And he added: “ There is still a lot more gold to come.” Fosterville is the first major mine in Victoria to produce gold from sources other than alluvial deep leads or quartz associated orebodies. The Fosterville ore is more akin to typical Western Australian orebodies with an oxidised cap of ore overlaying more strongly mineralised sulphide material. Based on the company’s current plans the Fosterville sulphide project could come on stream at a rate of 52,500 ounces a year and lift total mine production towards 100,000 ounces a year. The company’s feasibility study indicates that gold production over five years will total 252,000 ounces at an average cash cost of 2
production of $A287 an ounce, excluding capitalised pre-strip costs. Over the five years, quarterly cash costs are expected to fall to as low at $A191 an ounce. The $35 million sulphide project, for which financing is now being finalised, will take a year to develop ‘once the cash is in the tin’, according to Perseverance operations manager, Neville Bergin. The sulphide project has dramatically extended the life of the Fosterville project but the longer life will also mean environmental improvements. Drilling in the December quarter in the Sulphide ore zones returned best intersections of 22 metres at 10.22 grams of gold per tonne, 40m at 4.82 g/t, 28m at 4.42 g/t, 12m at 10.21 g/t, 14m at 8.71 g/t, 28m at 3.91 g/t and 14m at 5.23 g/t. Those intersections, in a Western Australian mine context, would normally be sufficient to spark a major share price run, but the mining industry is not used to major sulphide discoveries in Victoria and has yet to come to terms fully with the significance of the find. While the existing oxide operations extend over several kilometres and extract ore from several open pits, the sulphide project will require a substantial pre-stripping effort to expose the ore. The known Fosterville oxide orebodies now extend over an impressive strike length of 14.5 km As part of that process Perseverance has plans to backfill some of its existing operations as waste rock dumps, improving the aesthetics of the site and allowing dramatic visual benefits to the area. Top dressing and revegetation will leave restored areas available for pasture and farming use. Gold production from Fosterville is financing a major regional exploration effort as well, with the company recently reporting encouraging sampling programs from areas of greenstone rock outcrops 15 km east of the existing mine. These samples have returned elevated gold, nickel and zinc levels, sparking significant interest from other mining companies operating in the area. Perseverance intends to step up its exploration of the greenstone areas with extensive rock chip sampling programs and a detailed investigation of the underlying geology.
goldcrown
SPECIAL FEATURE
Fosterville shapes up for Perseverance Corp’s Fosterville gold mine, 22 km east of Bendigo, is gearing up to become Victoria’s largest gold mine, overtaking the State’s gold industry stalwart, the Stawell mine.
A
move to develop a new biological oxidation plant at Fosterville to process higher grade sulphide ore is likely to lift production beyond that of Stawell, giving Victoria’s gold industry a much bigger profile in the national industry. Perseverance is currently treating one million tonnes of ore a year for production of 38,000 ounces. However, in the past year the company has made major strides towards its aim of developing systems to process the richer, but more complex sulphide ore which underlies much of its current oxide ore. After the latest round of exploration drilling, Perseverance has lifted its sulphide ore gold resource to 964,000 ounces, increasing the company’s total gold resource to 1.3 million ounces. And while Perseverance is treating relatively low grade oxide ore, the scale and efficiency of the mining operation has allowed the company to slash its production cash costs to just $A319 an ounce, still comfortably below the international gold price.
Right: Perseverance Mining now produces 80,000 ounces of gold a year using modern truck and shovel mining techniques. Top: Drilling on the Fosterville leases has now delineated well over one million ounces in both oxide and sulphide resources. Above: Diamond drilling has helped Perseverance lift it’s total gold resources to 1.3 million ounces.
During a presentation to Mining Week participants Perseverance’s exploration and development director, Chris Roberts, told delegates the company has produced a total of 146,000 ounces from Fosterville in its latest mining campaign. And he added: “ There is still a lot more gold to come.” Fosterville is the first major mine in Victoria to produce gold from sources other than alluvial deep leads or quartz associated orebodies. The Fosterville ore is more akin to typical Western Australian orebodies with an oxidised cap of ore overlaying more strongly mineralised sulphide material. Based on the company’s current plans the Fosterville sulphide project could come on stream at a rate of 52,500 ounces a year and lift total mine production towards 100,000 ounces a year. The company’s feasibility study indicates that gold production over five years will total 252,000 ounces at an average cash cost of 2
production of $A287 an ounce, excluding capitalised pre-strip costs. Over the five years, quarterly cash costs are expected to fall to as low at $A191 an ounce. The $35 million sulphide project, for which financing is now being finalised, will take a year to develop ‘once the cash is in the tin’, according to Perseverance operations manager, Neville Bergin. The sulphide project has dramatically extended the life of the Fosterville project but the longer life will also mean environmental improvements. Drilling in the December quarter in the Sulphide ore zones returned best intersections of 22 metres at 10.22 grams of gold per tonne, 40m at 4.82 g/t, 28m at 4.42 g/t, 12m at 10.21 g/t, 14m at 8.71 g/t, 28m at 3.91 g/t and 14m at 5.23 g/t. Those intersections, in a Western Australian mine context, would normally be sufficient to spark a major share price run, but the mining industry is not used to major sulphide discoveries in Victoria and has yet to come to terms fully with the significance of the find. While the existing oxide operations extend over several kilometres and extract ore from several open pits, the sulphide project will require a substantial pre-stripping effort to expose the ore. The known Fosterville oxide orebodies now extend over an impressive strike length of 14.5 km As part of that process Perseverance has plans to backfill some of its existing operations as waste rock dumps, improving the aesthetics of the site and allowing dramatic visual benefits to the area. Top dressing and revegetation will leave restored areas available for pasture and farming use. Gold production from Fosterville is financing a major regional exploration effort as well, with the company recently reporting encouraging sampling programs from areas of greenstone rock outcrops 15 km east of the existing mine. These samples have returned elevated gold, nickel and zinc levels, sparking significant interest from other mining companies operating in the area. Perseverance intends to step up its exploration of the greenstone areas with extensive rock chip sampling programs and a detailed investigation of the underlying geology.
goldcrown
REGULAR FEATURE
DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT MINERALS AND PETROLEUM CONTACT LIST: MINERALS BUSINESS CENTRE: Level 8, 240 Victoria Parade, East Melbourne Vic 3002 Australia Tel: +613 9412 5020 Fax: +613 9412 5150
MINERALS AND PETROLEUM DIVISION: Fax: (03) 9412 7834 David Lea Executive Director Minerals and Petroleum Telephone: (03) 9637 8535 MINERALS BUSINESS CENTRE: Fax: (03) 9412 5150 Kim Ricketts Client Services Officer Telephone: (03) 9412 5103 MINERALS DEVELOPMENT: Fax: (03) 9637 8118 Phil Roberts Manager Minerals Development Telephone: (03) 9637 8529 Graham Gooding Regional Manager Ballarat Telephone: (03) 53 336 521 Guy Hamilton Regional Manager Bendigo Telephone: (03) 5430 4531 EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRIES: George Buckland Manager Extractive Industries Telephone: (03) 9637 8541 TITLES: Fax: (03) 9412 5150 David Wallish Acting Manager Minerals and Petroleum Titles Telephone: (03) 9412 5124
Bob Dalgarno VIMP Co-ordinator Telephone: (03) 9412 5032
Phil Roberts (right) explains Victoria’s competitive advantages for miners and explorers to a delegate at the Toronto convention.
PETROLEUM DEVELOPMENT: Fax: (03) 9412 5156
Canadian exposure
Kathy Hill Manager Petroleum Developments Telephone: (03) 9637 8530 Reza Malek Manager Petroleum Resources Telephone: (03) 9412 5074
V
Mike Woollands Manager Basin Studies Telephone: (03) 9412 5135
Bob Harms Manager Petroleum Information Telephone: (03) 9412 5053
The Australian exhibition attracted a good deal of interest from convention delegates and compared very well with the exhibitions of other countries.
Geoff Collins Manager Petroleum Projects Telephone: (03) 9637 8531
There was considerable interest in Victorian mining and both companies reported investor interest in their Victorian activities. An Australian exploration and mining symposium, ‘New Generation Discoveries Down Under’ was also held and featured presentations by five Australian companies.
OPERATIONS: Fax: (03) 9412 5152 Rob King Acting Manager Minerals and Petroleum Operations Telephone: (03) 9412 5069
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY VICTORIA: Fax: (03) 9412 5155 Tom Dickson Manager Geological Survey Victoria Telephone: (03) 9412 5035
Brian Wright Manager GIS & Client Services Telephone: (03) 9412 5136
Alan Willocks Manager Geophysical Surveys Telephone: (03) 9412 5131
Chandri Corray Manager Marketing Development Telephone: (03) 9637 8532 Fax: (03) 9637 8118
ictorian mining was strongly represented in Toronto in March at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) Convention with Minerals and Petroleum Victoria (MPV), Perseverance Corporation and Highlake Resources all helping spread the word.
MPV, led by Minerals Development Manager Phil Roberts, and the Victorian companies were part of a larger Australian mining industry exhibition which included the NSW, WA and SA Governments, the Australian Geological Survey Organisation (AGSO) and several Australian exploration, mining and supplier companies.
Maher Megallaa Manager Acreage Release Telephone: (03) 9412 5081
INFORMATION: Janne Bonnett Manager Library Telephone: (03) 9412 5022 Fax: (03) 9412 5157
Peter O’Shea Manager Geological Mapping Telephone: (03) 9412 5093
Government extends VIMP to 2001
HEAD OFFICE: Level 15, 8 Nicholson Street, East Melbourne Vic 3002 Australia Tel: +613 9637 8535 Fax: +613 9637 8155
The presentations included details on operations, exploration successes and general prospects in their regions of activity. Perseverance Corporation provided delegates with a detailed presentation on its Fosterville operations, the potential of Victorian goldfields and the support provided by the Victorian Government. The PDAC convention is a major event on the world mining calendar, geared towards the international investment and trade community and is a significant forum for promoting Australia and Victoria as a place for investing in exploration and mining.
T
his edition of Discovery is going to the printer immediately after the announcement of the 1998-99 Victorian State Government budget.
Therefore, it is singularly timely and appropriate that I can report to a broad audience of industry and other stakeholders the Government’s decision to commit another $7 million over three years to the Victorian Initiative for Minerals and Petroleum [VIMP]. This will take the program of activities through to the year 2001. From now on the program will be called VIMP 2001. This extension will bring the total expenditure to $25.5 million on state-of-the-art regional geological information since its commencement in 1994. This will enable Victoria to ensure that most of the prospective areas of the State are covered by high quality geo-physical information. The proportion of the State covered by such information is considerably more than any other Australian State. It is arguable that no government in the world provides the industry with such high-quality and comprehensive data to attract and focus exploration. The success of the program to date is shown by the following achievements: • A fourfold increase in the annual rate of industry minerals exploration, • Cumulative industry expenditure nearly 15 times government expenditure, and growing,
• Exciting results from greenfields exploration in the Mount Wellington region, and; • Considerable progress occurring towards the establishment of at least two minerals sands mining operations in the north west of Victoria. Although to date much of the focus of VIMP has been towards encouraging mineral exploration, petroleum exploration has also been a target for the initiative. The Victorian Government’s aggressive leadership in the reform of the electricity and gas industries is opening up new opportunities for the expanded use of natural gas on the Australian east coast. The changing market will open up opportunities for new supply projects after a long period of market stability. For Victoria to fully benefit from these opportunities we will want to see an increase in the level of petroleum exploration activity within the State and in nearby Commonwealth waters. The VIMP 2001 expenditure will focus particularly on encouraging such a change. I am strongly committed to ensuring that Victoria’s natural resources are developed for the wealth and jobs they bring to the people in this great State. This commitment is shown in the priority I have given to funding VIMP 2001. I encourage industry to follow this lead to the mutual benefit of their shareholders and the community.
the WORLD is yours
Patrick McNamara Deputy Premier Minister for Agriculture and Resources
You’ll find a world of information on Victorian mining, geology and petroleum in the Department of Natural Resources’ Minerals and Petroleum Reference Centre. Although focussed to serve members of the mining industry, the MPRC is open to the public from 8.30am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. It is conveniently located next to the Minerals Business Centre.
special collections include: • Expired tenement reports on microfiche (and hard copy) • 5000+ Geological Survey of Victoria Unpublished Reports • Departmental publications (old Mines Department records and reports dating from 1851) • Victorian published geological maps, both current and historical • Underground mine plans on microfiche • 1600+ B&W historical Victorian mining photographs
Jim Kinder Manager Geological Draughting Telephone: (03) 9412 5068 Roger Buckley Manager Mineral Resources Telephone: (03) 9412 5025
The MPRC is now located with the Minerals Business Centre on the 8th floor, Department of Natural Resources and Environment, 240 Victoria Parade, East Melbourne. Phone: (03) 9412 5145. Fax: (03) 9412 5157. E-mail:[email protected]
6
7
REGULAR FEATURE
DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT MINERALS AND PETROLEUM CONTACT LIST: MINERALS BUSINESS CENTRE: Level 8, 240 Victoria Parade, East Melbourne Vic 3002 Australia Tel: +613 9412 5020 Fax: +613 9412 5150
MINERALS AND PETROLEUM DIVISION: Fax: (03) 9412 7834 David Lea Executive Director Minerals and Petroleum Telephone: (03) 9637 8535 MINERALS BUSINESS CENTRE: Fax: (03) 9412 5150 Kim Ricketts Client Services Officer Telephone: (03) 9412 5103 MINERALS DEVELOPMENT: Fax: (03) 9637 8118 Phil Roberts Manager Minerals Development Telephone: (03) 9637 8529 Graham Gooding Regional Manager Ballarat Telephone: (03) 53 336 521 Guy Hamilton Regional Manager Bendigo Telephone: (03) 5430 4531 EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRIES: George Buckland Manager Extractive Industries Telephone: (03) 9637 8541 TITLES: Fax: (03) 9412 5150 David Wallish Acting Manager Minerals and Petroleum Titles Telephone: (03) 9412 5124
Bob Dalgarno VIMP Co-ordinator Telephone: (03) 9412 5032
Phil Roberts (right) explains Victoria’s competitive advantages for miners and explorers to a delegate at the Toronto convention.
PETROLEUM DEVELOPMENT: Fax: (03) 9412 5156
Canadian exposure
Kathy Hill Manager Petroleum Developments Telephone: (03) 9637 8530 Reza Malek Manager Petroleum Resources Telephone: (03) 9412 5074
V
Mike Woollands Manager Basin Studies Telephone: (03) 9412 5135
Bob Harms Manager Petroleum Information Telephone: (03) 9412 5053
The Australian exhibition attracted a good deal of interest from convention delegates and compared very well with the exhibitions of other countries.
Geoff Collins Manager Petroleum Projects Telephone: (03) 9637 8531
There was considerable interest in Victorian mining and both companies reported investor interest in their Victorian activities. An Australian exploration and mining symposium, ‘New Generation Discoveries Down Under’ was also held and featured presentations by five Australian companies.
OPERATIONS: Fax: (03) 9412 5152 Rob King Acting Manager Minerals and Petroleum Operations Telephone: (03) 9412 5069
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY VICTORIA: Fax: (03) 9412 5155 Tom Dickson Manager Geological Survey Victoria Telephone: (03) 9412 5035
Brian Wright Manager GIS & Client Services Telephone: (03) 9412 5136
Alan Willocks Manager Geophysical Surveys Telephone: (03) 9412 5131
Chandri Corray Manager Marketing Development Telephone: (03) 9637 8532 Fax: (03) 9637 8118
ictorian mining was strongly represented in Toronto in March at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) Convention with Minerals and Petroleum Victoria (MPV), Perseverance Corporation and Highlake Resources all helping spread the word.
MPV, led by Minerals Development Manager Phil Roberts, and the Victorian companies were part of a larger Australian mining industry exhibition which included the NSW, WA and SA Governments, the Australian Geological Survey Organisation (AGSO) and several Australian exploration, mining and supplier companies.
Maher Megallaa Manager Acreage Release Telephone: (03) 9412 5081
INFORMATION: Janne Bonnett Manager Library Telephone: (03) 9412 5022 Fax: (03) 9412 5157
Peter O’Shea Manager Geological Mapping Telephone: (03) 9412 5093
Government extends VIMP to 2001
HEAD OFFICE: Level 15, 8 Nicholson Street, East Melbourne Vic 3002 Australia Tel: +613 9637 8535 Fax: +613 9637 8155
The presentations included details on operations, exploration successes and general prospects in their regions of activity. Perseverance Corporation provided delegates with a detailed presentation on its Fosterville operations, the potential of Victorian goldfields and the support provided by the Victorian Government. The PDAC convention is a major event on the world mining calendar, geared towards the international investment and trade community and is a significant forum for promoting Australia and Victoria as a place for investing in exploration and mining.
T
his edition of Discovery is going to the printer immediately after the announcement of the 1998-99 Victorian State Government budget.
Therefore, it is singularly timely and appropriate that I can report to a broad audience of industry and other stakeholders the Government’s decision to commit another $7 million over three years to the Victorian Initiative for Minerals and Petroleum [VIMP]. This will take the program of activities through to the year 2001. From now on the program will be called VIMP 2001. This extension will bring the total expenditure to $25.5 million on state-of-the-art regional geological information since its commencement in 1994. This will enable Victoria to ensure that most of the prospective areas of the State are covered by high quality geo-physical information. The proportion of the State covered by such information is considerably more than any other Australian State. It is arguable that no government in the world provides the industry with such high-quality and comprehensive data to attract and focus exploration. The success of the program to date is shown by the following achievements: • A fourfold increase in the annual rate of industry minerals exploration, • Cumulative industry expenditure nearly 15 times government expenditure, and growing,
• Exciting results from greenfields exploration in the Mount Wellington region, and; • Considerable progress occurring towards the establishment of at least two minerals sands mining operations in the north west of Victoria. Although to date much of the focus of VIMP has been towards encouraging mineral exploration, petroleum exploration has also been a target for the initiative. The Victorian Government’s aggressive leadership in the reform of the electricity and gas industries is opening up new opportunities for the expanded use of natural gas on the Australian east coast. The changing market will open up opportunities for new supply projects after a long period of market stability. For Victoria to fully benefit from these opportunities we will want to see an increase in the level of petroleum exploration activity within the State and in nearby Commonwealth waters. The VIMP 2001 expenditure will focus particularly on encouraging such a change. I am strongly committed to ensuring that Victoria’s natural resources are developed for the wealth and jobs they bring to the people in this great State. This commitment is shown in the priority I have given to funding VIMP 2001. I encourage industry to follow this lead to the mutual benefit of their shareholders and the community.
the WORLD is yours
Patrick McNamara Deputy Premier Minister for Agriculture and Resources
You’ll find a world of information on Victorian mining, geology and petroleum in the Department of Natural Resources’ Minerals and Petroleum Reference Centre. Although focussed to serve members of the mining industry, the MPRC is open to the public from 8.30am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. It is conveniently located next to the Minerals Business Centre.
special collections include: • Expired tenement reports on microfiche (and hard copy) • 5000+ Geological Survey of Victoria Unpublished Reports • Departmental publications (old Mines Department records and reports dating from 1851) • Victorian published geological maps, both current and historical • Underground mine plans on microfiche • 1600+ B&W historical Victorian mining photographs
Jim Kinder Manager Geological Draughting Telephone: (03) 9412 5068 Roger Buckley Manager Mineral Resources Telephone: (03) 9412 5025
The MPRC is now located with the Minerals Business Centre on the 8th floor, Department of Natural Resources and Environment, 240 Victoria Parade, East Melbourne. Phone: (03) 9412 5145. Fax: (03) 9412 5157. E-mail:[email protected]
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7
SPECIAL FEATURE
NEWS REPORT
It’s flowing gold
VIMP wins a 3-year extension
amples from old water boreholes spread over hundreds of square kilometres of central Victoria, and new drill holes being sunk into the area are spearheading one of the State’s most advanced and innovative searches for a new goldfield.
S
basalt-covered ground between Maldon and Creswick to the south, has taken more than 200 samples from water bores scattered across its tenement blocks.
Central Victoria-based gold explorer and producer Alliance Gold Mines, spent much of the past year building the borehole data base in what could lead to a more timely and costeffective answer to unlocking Victoria’s modern gold era.
Alliance’s managing director Garry Salter, says that analysis of the samples is helping the company delineate both anomalous metal values and basement rock types beneath basalt. A number of anomalous zones have already been identified.
Alliance is one of the first mining companies in Australia to use water geochemistry developed by CSIRO as a primary exploration method in the hunt for new mineral discoveries.
The work has not been easy going.
The method recognises that mobile groundwaters, unlike more static and narrow drillhole core samples, can represent, in solution, the rock and soil types of the ground structure encountered in their flowpath. Such samples can also reveal an indicative profile of the range of minerals which suggest gold in deposit. Since January 1997, Alliance, which owns the exploration rights to 650 square kilometres of
Where necessary, additional surface holes have been drilled to fill-in gaps in the initial reconnaissance grid.
Since the 1950s, windmills have been used less and less on farms, with many landholders opting for a well to be sunk near their farmhouse and fitted with a submersible pump which then distributes water to the property and thus limiting opportunities for sampling. There is also the unknown factor about the time any groundwater flows in the region take to get from sampling point A to sampling point B - with estimates ranging wildly. Mr Salter pointed out that the method has yet to identify a commercial ore body - although water sampling has been successfully applied
Alliance Gold Mines managing director, Garry Salter.
retrospectively to identify such ore bodies as those currently being mined at Northparkes and Black Flag. “Water bore sampling for the purpose of locating a potential mineral deposit is a very complicated chemistry and has to take into account any number of factors,” Mr Salter said. “It may also not be gold that is the pathfinder - it could be another element or mineral which takes precedence but which, in constant analysis, emerges as the lead to pinpointing an ore body. “However, the method allows a broad profile of what’s under the basalt to be constructed in a much shorter time frame and at much lower cost than conventional more costly and slower surface drilling. “Zones or plumes whose structural and chemical analysis signatures identified in the water sample testing and which are suggestive of gold or other mineral bearing deposits, can then be targeted for close-in drilling and assessment as need be by more conventional methods.” Mr Salter said the establishment of Alliance’s accelerated water sampling program in the Creswick region in 1997 was one of the most serious attempts in more than 100 years to locate a new goldfield in Victoria.
Creswick Clunes
“Water sampling is not an easy or well understood science,” he added. The present day land surface, with its lava flows, could hide major new gold deposits.
Maryborough
If it was, every mining company would be using it, but they are not, so Alliance in many ways is pioneering the methodology for Australia’s modern minerals sector. “However, it is likely to be at least another six to 12 months before we are in a position to start drawing more substantial results from the initial sampling program.” The company is correlating the bore sampling analysis with Landsat imagery and soil geochemistry to help identify possible gold targets under the basalt layers.
Removing both the alluvial and basalt cover from the land could reveal vast new gold resources.
F O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N C O N TA C T:
Garry Salter - Alliance Gold Mines NL Telephone: (03) 9866 6800
8
T
he highly successful Victorian Initiative for Minerals and Petroleum has been extended by the Victorian Government in the 1998/99 budget with another $7 million allocated to fund extensive new exploration programs over the next three years. That brings the total VIMP funding allocated by the Victorian Government to $25.5 million over a period of seven years, easily the most extensive resources industry package provided by any state in Australia. While the focus in the first four years of the VIMP program was primarily centred on minerals exploration projects, the latest round of government funding also includes major initiatives for the petroleum industry. The latest phase of the program, renamed VIMP 2001, reflects the forward looking nature of the program as Victoria works to attract new investment in its growing resources industry. The Executive Director of Minerals and Petroleum Victoria, David Lea, said that the renewal of funding for VIMP 2001 was a recognition of the success of the initial VIMP expenditure and the Government’s commitment to the development of the resources industry in Victoria. He added: “While petroleum expenditure will be a particular focus of this latest round of activity, there will still be significant funding of minerals related research and exploration.” “With the recent recovery in the $US gold price we hope that the upward trend of exploration and mining activity in the state will continue, and we look forward to a significant increase in petroleum exploration in Victoria.” Mr Lea said there were very positive signs from the response to the 1997 petroleum acreage bidding round that exploration levels in Victoria could increase significantly. The Victorian Chamber of Mines has also expressed its enthusiasm for the latest VIMP program funding. Executive director of the VCM, John Reynolds, said the Chamber welcomed the recognition of the importance of having available the latest and best technology based information to stimulate exploration activity and help make it more successful. He said the new funding through VIMP 2001 for an increase in geophysical and geological data gathering would complement the earlier
VIMP program which has made a substantial difference to Victorian exploration. “Several companies have reported that VIMP data has been of significant help in identifying mineralisation,” Mr Reynolds said. “The industry has asked the Government to complete the coverage of the state using the best available technology as soon as possible and to ensure that the geoscience skills are maintained to continue the work as new technologies evolve,” he added. The Victorian Initiative for Minerals and Petroleum first began in 1994 when the government allocated $16.5 million to fund a new wave of minerals and petroleum in the state. That funding coincided with a sweeping overhaul of legislation covering the mining industry in the state with VIMP and the new Mineral Resources Development Act together sparking an exploration rush. Since VIMP began, exploration has boomed with more than $50 million spent in the state in the last financial year. The VIMP program was extended last year with another $2 million allocated to allow the completion of a number of airborne geophysical and magnetic surveys, processing of data and geological mapping
Multi-stream ‘3D’ surveys conducted by vessels like the GECO ‘Resolution’ - a recent visitor are proposed for Bass Strait.
ing a system which allowed the retrieval and preservation of petroleum industry data. Under the new funding more work to collate existing information will be conducted and placed into an easily retrievable, digital format.
New gold and base metal deposits in the state’s east are emerging as new work to test magnetic and geophysical targets continues.
Funding will also be directed to reprocessing offshore seismic survey data in the Gippsland Basin, increasing the attraction of that region to explorers while new airborne geophysical surveys, both on and offshore, will be directed at identifying the major structural features within the sedimentary basins of Victoria and to interpreting the basement rocks underlying the basins.
Now the petroleum industry will benefit from the new VIMP 2001 funding.
The onshore surveys will also have significant value for the minerals exploration industry.
A major program to further develop the Petroleum Information System will be conducted through the VIMP 2001 funding.
New mapping initiatives will be conducted within the minerals and petroleum areas, while additional GIS minerals database packages will be prepared over the next three years.
Clearly, the VIMP program has been responsible for new discoveries in Victoria with airborne surveys leading directly to the discovery of several promising mineral sands deposits in the Murray Basin region.
Already much of the earlier VIMP funding in the petroleum sector was directed to develop9
SPECIAL FEATURE
NEWS REPORT
It’s flowing gold
VIMP wins a 3-year extension
amples from old water boreholes spread over hundreds of square kilometres of central Victoria, and new drill holes being sunk into the area are spearheading one of the State’s most advanced and innovative searches for a new goldfield.
S
basalt-covered ground between Maldon and Creswick to the south, has taken more than 200 samples from water bores scattered across its tenement blocks.
Central Victoria-based gold explorer and producer Alliance Gold Mines, spent much of the past year building the borehole data base in what could lead to a more timely and costeffective answer to unlocking Victoria’s modern gold era.
Alliance’s managing director Garry Salter, says that analysis of the samples is helping the company delineate both anomalous metal values and basement rock types beneath basalt. A number of anomalous zones have already been identified.
Alliance is one of the first mining companies in Australia to use water geochemistry developed by CSIRO as a primary exploration method in the hunt for new mineral discoveries.
The work has not been easy going.
The method recognises that mobile groundwaters, unlike more static and narrow drillhole core samples, can represent, in solution, the rock and soil types of the ground structure encountered in their flowpath. Such samples can also reveal an indicative profile of the range of minerals which suggest gold in deposit. Since January 1997, Alliance, which owns the exploration rights to 650 square kilometres of
Where necessary, additional surface holes have been drilled to fill-in gaps in the initial reconnaissance grid.
Since the 1950s, windmills have been used less and less on farms, with many landholders opting for a well to be sunk near their farmhouse and fitted with a submersible pump which then distributes water to the property and thus limiting opportunities for sampling. There is also the unknown factor about the time any groundwater flows in the region take to get from sampling point A to sampling point B - with estimates ranging wildly. Mr Salter pointed out that the method has yet to identify a commercial ore body - although water sampling has been successfully applied
Alliance Gold Mines managing director, Garry Salter.
retrospectively to identify such ore bodies as those currently being mined at Northparkes and Black Flag. “Water bore sampling for the purpose of locating a potential mineral deposit is a very complicated chemistry and has to take into account any number of factors,” Mr Salter said. “It may also not be gold that is the pathfinder - it could be another element or mineral which takes precedence but which, in constant analysis, emerges as the lead to pinpointing an ore body. “However, the method allows a broad profile of what’s under the basalt to be constructed in a much shorter time frame and at much lower cost than conventional more costly and slower surface drilling. “Zones or plumes whose structural and chemical analysis signatures identified in the water sample testing and which are suggestive of gold or other mineral bearing deposits, can then be targeted for close-in drilling and assessment as need be by more conventional methods.” Mr Salter said the establishment of Alliance’s accelerated water sampling program in the Creswick region in 1997 was one of the most serious attempts in more than 100 years to locate a new goldfield in Victoria.
Creswick Clunes
“Water sampling is not an easy or well understood science,” he added. The present day land surface, with its lava flows, could hide major new gold deposits.
Maryborough
If it was, every mining company would be using it, but they are not, so Alliance in many ways is pioneering the methodology for Australia’s modern minerals sector. “However, it is likely to be at least another six to 12 months before we are in a position to start drawing more substantial results from the initial sampling program.” The company is correlating the bore sampling analysis with Landsat imagery and soil geochemistry to help identify possible gold targets under the basalt layers.
Removing both the alluvial and basalt cover from the land could reveal vast new gold resources.
F O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N C O N TA C T:
Garry Salter - Alliance Gold Mines NL Telephone: (03) 9866 6800
8
T
he highly successful Victorian Initiative for Minerals and Petroleum has been extended by the Victorian Government in the 1998/99 budget with another $7 million allocated to fund extensive new exploration programs over the next three years. That brings the total VIMP funding allocated by the Victorian Government to $25.5 million over a period of seven years, easily the most extensive resources industry package provided by any state in Australia. While the focus in the first four years of the VIMP program was primarily centred on minerals exploration projects, the latest round of government funding also includes major initiatives for the petroleum industry. The latest phase of the program, renamed VIMP 2001, reflects the forward looking nature of the program as Victoria works to attract new investment in its growing resources industry. The Executive Director of Minerals and Petroleum Victoria, David Lea, said that the renewal of funding for VIMP 2001 was a recognition of the success of the initial VIMP expenditure and the Government’s commitment to the development of the resources industry in Victoria. He added: “While petroleum expenditure will be a particular focus of this latest round of activity, there will still be significant funding of minerals related research and exploration.” “With the recent recovery in the $US gold price we hope that the upward trend of exploration and mining activity in the state will continue, and we look forward to a significant increase in petroleum exploration in Victoria.” Mr Lea said there were very positive signs from the response to the 1997 petroleum acreage bidding round that exploration levels in Victoria could increase significantly. The Victorian Chamber of Mines has also expressed its enthusiasm for the latest VIMP program funding. Executive director of the VCM, John Reynolds, said the Chamber welcomed the recognition of the importance of having available the latest and best technology based information to stimulate exploration activity and help make it more successful. He said the new funding through VIMP 2001 for an increase in geophysical and geological data gathering would complement the earlier
VIMP program which has made a substantial difference to Victorian exploration. “Several companies have reported that VIMP data has been of significant help in identifying mineralisation,” Mr Reynolds said. “The industry has asked the Government to complete the coverage of the state using the best available technology as soon as possible and to ensure that the geoscience skills are maintained to continue the work as new technologies evolve,” he added. The Victorian Initiative for Minerals and Petroleum first began in 1994 when the government allocated $16.5 million to fund a new wave of minerals and petroleum in the state. That funding coincided with a sweeping overhaul of legislation covering the mining industry in the state with VIMP and the new Mineral Resources Development Act together sparking an exploration rush. Since VIMP began, exploration has boomed with more than $50 million spent in the state in the last financial year. The VIMP program was extended last year with another $2 million allocated to allow the completion of a number of airborne geophysical and magnetic surveys, processing of data and geological mapping
Multi-stream ‘3D’ surveys conducted by vessels like the GECO ‘Resolution’ - a recent visitor are proposed for Bass Strait.
ing a system which allowed the retrieval and preservation of petroleum industry data. Under the new funding more work to collate existing information will be conducted and placed into an easily retrievable, digital format.
New gold and base metal deposits in the state’s east are emerging as new work to test magnetic and geophysical targets continues.
Funding will also be directed to reprocessing offshore seismic survey data in the Gippsland Basin, increasing the attraction of that region to explorers while new airborne geophysical surveys, both on and offshore, will be directed at identifying the major structural features within the sedimentary basins of Victoria and to interpreting the basement rocks underlying the basins.
Now the petroleum industry will benefit from the new VIMP 2001 funding.
The onshore surveys will also have significant value for the minerals exploration industry.
A major program to further develop the Petroleum Information System will be conducted through the VIMP 2001 funding.
New mapping initiatives will be conducted within the minerals and petroleum areas, while additional GIS minerals database packages will be prepared over the next three years.
Clearly, the VIMP program has been responsible for new discoveries in Victoria with airborne surveys leading directly to the discovery of several promising mineral sands deposits in the Murray Basin region.
Already much of the earlier VIMP funding in the petroleum sector was directed to develop9
SPECIAL FEATURE
REGULAR FEATURE
Sir Humphrey has had his day
Forest agreement maintains access M iners and the timber industry are clear winners from the Central Highlands Regional Forest Agreement, concluded between the Commonwealth and State Governments in late March.
should the Commonwealth Government wish to alter the agreement at some future time.
The good news for the mining industry is that there will be no additions to parks or reserves and no further restrictions on access to land for exploration and mining.
It is expected to be concluded by late 1998.
The Central Highlands RFA, which covers the area east and north of Melbourne bounded by Seymour, Jamieson and Moe, is one of five agreements due to be struck by the year 2000. The East Gippsland RFA was concluded in 1997. The Central Highlands Regional Forest Agreement protects the interests of miners and the timber industry.
F O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N C O N TA C T:
Phil Roberts - Manager Minerals and Petroleum Victoria Telephone (03) 9637 8529
The Central Highlands RFA maintains the important principle that Victorian law (primarily the Mineral Resources Development Act) continues to govern access for exploration and mining. A requirement in the East Gippsland RFA that all mining projects undertake an environmental effects statement has been dropped for Central Highlands, to assist smaller scale mining. The agreement also provides for compensation for affected parties (including miners)
Small miners have their say
V
ictoria’s mining industry owes much of its history to the prospectors and small miners who powered the development of what remains one of the world’s great gold fields. Today, the prospectors and small miners of Victoria occupy a vastly different place in the industry but retain an important link to its history. Following in the rich history of the Eureka Stockade and its fight for the rights of individuals to the riches of the goldfields the Prospectors and Miners Association of Victoria continues to represent small miners and individuals keen to continue the search for Victoria’s mineral wealth. The PMAV specifically represents small miners operating on a licence area of five hectares or less and those individuals operating under a Miners Right document. In Victoria, up to 30,000 prospectors and min-
ers are estimated to operate under those terms, many weekend operators using modern metal detectors. However, the issues facing larger, well-funded exploration companies remain the same for PMAV members. Issues such as land access, native title and legislative amendments are of interest to PMAV members, as are environmental concerns and responsibilities Of recent concern to PMAV members was the cost of advertising requirements in relation to mining licences. Following representations to Minerals and Petroleum Victoria these advertising requirements have been modified resulting in substantial savings for the entire mining industry, large and small alike. The PMAV is also pursuing the rights of small miners to gain access to various categories of parks for the purposes of prospecting. As part of an on-going campaign to preserve 10
The next RFA due to be negotiated will cover Victoria’s north-east forests, covering the area to the east of the Hume Freeway and north of the Great Dividing Range to the NSW border. Regional Forest Agreements, covering the forest areas of Victoria, will last for twenty years. They are designed to provide for the establishment of a ‘comprehensive, adequate and representative (CAR) forest reserve system’, to ensure conservation and protection of environmental and heritage values, sustainable forest management and development of forest based industries. The CAR reserve system for Highlands comprises:
the Central
• existing parks, which are not currently available for exploration and mining, • other conservation reserves, some of which are restricted Crown land under the Mineral Resources Development Act, and • State forest, zoned for protection of significant conservation values, which is designated as unrestricted Crown land.
Rita Bentley, president of the Prospectors and Miners Association of Victoria.
A
decade or so ago anyone writing on innovation in government might have been perceived as creating an oxymoron.
Innovation was something which happened in the private sector of specialist research areas.
F O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N C O N TA C T:
Rita Bentley - President Prospectors and Miners Association of Victoria Telephone (03) 9572 1567
you have picture from last issue
The public’s view, shaped by ‘Yes Minister’, was of public servants in their cardigans, led by their own ‘Sir Humphreys’, ensuring that things stayed much as they had always been.
• the value of working with clients and capturing their views cannot be overstated, • time spent in thorough and comprehensive analysis and planning will be repaid in effective implementation, • input and ownership of all staff is essential,
This picture, if it were true then, is certainly not true in Victoria today.
• once staff have been through the process a culture of challenging and continuous improvement is established.
As we approach the next millennium, the pressures on governments to balance the myriad of competing priorities for services within a level of expenditure acceptable to the community, are growing inexorably.
We are in the process of applying the same model to our Minerals & Petroleum Operations activities.
The rate of change in the factors which drive these pressures, principally, social complexity, demographics and technology, shows no sign of slowing down. The challenge to do more with less must, therefore, become as much a part of the ongoing activities of the public sector as it has in the private sector. The reality of today’s workplace, private or public, is that the only constant is change. The quest is for continuous improvement. One model which may be used to pursue continuous improvement is as follows: • Eliminate all services which are not core government activities which create value for the community • Re-engineer business processes to deliver quality services efficiently
the status of the Miners Right the PMAV has recently made a submission to Heritage Victoria seeking a listing for the Miners Right document on the Heritage Register. This is in keeping with PMAV’s over-riding objective to maintain access to Victoria’s mineral wealth for all individuals, a philosophy forged in the heat of battle at Eureka.
presented in a later issue of Discovery, it is useful to dwell on some of the major lessons which emerged from this experience. These include:
• Define job roles and structure to deliver services through these new processes • Train existing staff and, if necessary, recruit people with the required skills to undertake new roles • Drive productivity through focused performance indicators. • Use risk management principles to drive day-to-day priorities. Critical to this model is the willingness to rigorously challenge the reasons behind every process and activity. Often activities have developed through ‘custom and practice’ but do not have a basis in strict legal requirements and do not add value.
MPV executive director, David Lea
As well, we will be undertaking major reviews of regulations under the Extractive Industry Development Act, the Pipeline Act and the Petroleum Act over the next two years.
“Challenging ‘sacred cows’ is critical to a successful outcome” Obviously such steps can be eliminated. Challenging ‘sacred cows’ is critical to a successful outcome.
These reviews provide an opportunity to make fundamental changes to the processes and practices of Government regulation.
Often, legislative requirements can be based upon situations which ceased to apply years if not decades before.
The challenge is to create a framework which meets the needs of the community and industry for the new millennium.
This was the case with the Extractive Industry Act 1966 which incorporated an approvals process which was duplicated by subsequent planning reforms.
We look forward to working with all our stakeholders in developing innovative solutions to this challenge.
This inefficient and frustrating duplication was eliminated in 1996 by the promulgation of the Extractive Industry Development Act 1995. Minerals & Petroleum Victoria have applied the above model to the Minerals & Petroleum Titles Branch. While the details of this transformation will be 11
F O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N C O N TA C T:
David Lea Level 15, 8 Nicholson Street East Melbourne 3002 Telephone: (03) 9637 8535 Facsimile: (03) 9637 8155
REGULAR FEATURE
REGULAR FEATURE
Industry News MINERS SIGN GREEN CODE OF CONDUCT Five more Victorian mining companies have signed the Minerals Industry Code for Environmental Management, one of the most stringent programs in the world, as a major signal of their intent to operate in the most environmentally friendly manner possible. Victoria’s three big power companies, Yallourn Energy, Loy Yang Power and Hazelwood Power, all signed the code along with Bendigo Mining and Ballarat Goldfields at a ceremony held in Victoria’s Parliament house during February. Deputy Premier and Minister for Agriculture and Resources, Pat McNamara, attended the ceremony along with the chairman of the Australian Minerals Council and chief executive of MIM Ltd, Mr Nick Stump.
Victorian companies are leading the commitment to environmental management with a total of 12 already signatories to the Code. Nationally 32 companies have signed the code.
Industry News to achieve outcomes far beyond our individual capacities.”
educational tool of its type,” AIP chairman, Dr Ian Blackburne, said at the launch.
NATIONAL MINING TRAINING CENTRE BREAKS NEW GROUND
Apart from providing tailored solutions for mining problems, the NMTC also runs the certificate of mining course at the Central Gippsland Institute of TAFE, a course already recognised as providing a sound base for mine staff at open cut mines.
“It provides well produced and balanced information for high school students and teachers and covers everything from the dinosaur age and the formation of oil deposits through to our future energy requirements.”
A network of four small Australian businesses is securing lucrative contracts internationally and locally for its unique training and consulting programs aimed at the mining industry.
“Establishing and maintaining a skilled workforce must be a high priority for any mining operation to compete successfully today,” Mr Waghorne said.
The National Mining Training Centre Network, formed in 1997, is conducting training programs in Victoria and NSW while exporting its services to Indonesia and the US.
The NMTC recently assisted with a major training overhaul at the Yallourn Energy brown coal mine in the Latrobe Valley.
The code, which was launched in December 1996, is the centrepiece of a renewed commitment by the Australian minerals industry responding to community concerns about environmental management.
The company draws on the experience of its four network members, Geo-Eng Ltd, WBM Pty Ltd, the Central Gippsland Institute of TAFE and the Try Consulting Group to provide geology, geotechnical and mine engineering experience, mechanical and electrical engineering, materials handling, technical and trade training and human resources and supervisory training.
Victoria’s Perseverance Corp Ltd had previously signed the code and received its certificate of membership at the Parliament House ceremony.
Director of the National Mining Training Centre and principal engineer of Geo Eng, Ted Waghorne, said: “Forming a network has enabled our businesses to combine expertise
Yallourn mine manager, Gary Smith, said: “Our training program now dovetails with the strategic business plan. This was achieved by the NMTC working with our people to develop and implement a solid, competency based training program.” For further information contact: Ted Waghorne, NMTC on (03) 9651 9312.
PETROLEUM INDUSTRY CD ROM LAUNCHED After a two year development period, a major new teaching resource, in the form of a compact disc, has been launched by the Australian petroleum industry. A joint development by the Australian Institute of Petroleum and the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, the CD-ROM is designed to provide teachers and students with information about oil and gas from the origins of the resource, through exploration and production techniques to the refining, marketing and distribution processes for petroleum products. The CD also addresses environmental and safety issues and the future prospects for the industry. Designed to cater for year 7 to year 10 students, the CD reflects the national curriculum in science, studies of society and environment, mathematics and economics.
12
Mining week was launched in Bendigo by (left to right) Willie McLucas, chairman of Perseverance Mining Corp, the Mayor of the City of Greater Bendigo, Cr Barry Ackerman and David Lea, Executive Director Minerals and Petroleum Victoria. We have no idea of the identity of the fellow in overalls.
Visual aids on the CD include video material, animations and virtual reality tours across oil and gas resources and the full range of oil industry activities. For further information contact AIP (03) 9614 1466 or access the Website at: http://www.fusion.com.au/discovery
VICTORIAN GOLD UNITS REACH SPAIN The innovative Victorian gold recovery unit, the In-line Pressure Jig, developed by the Avoca based firm, Ground Developments Pty Ltd, is gathering an international reputation with three of its units installed recently at the El Valle gold and copper mine in Spain. Mine owner, Rio Narcea Goldmines SA, became the first overseas mine to install the jigs after project manager, Signet Engineering, recommended the units over other gravity separation systems.
Goldminco bought the project and associated assets in a deal costing $200,000 in the form of cash and shares after William Australia, the local subsidiary of the parent company, closed the mine in the wake of the falling gold price. Rodney Foster, managing director of Goldminco, said the company also provided William Resources 1.5 million Goldminco shares as part of the settlement of the deal in which Goldminco also replaced a $746,000 environmental bond applicable to the project. William Australia had operated Ballarat East as a large tonnage, low grade gold mine. “We view it as a selective mine, taking the higher grade ore bodies,” Mr Foster said.
The El Valle mine, in Asturias, Spain, is the first to install the In-line Pressure Jig in a copper/gold project, but Signet Engineering design manager Ian Thomas, said the units had produced excellent results to date with high availability of equipment, high metal recoveries and low operating costs.
His primary targets are the Nerrina pit area and the White Horse Ridge, which last year thrilled Ballarat fossickers by producing many gold nuggets and pieces of native gold, virtually from the surface, proving that the oldtimers did not take all the gold from Ballarat.
Two Australian copper/gold projects, Ernest Henry and Selwyn, both in Queensland, are now evaluating IPJ units for possible installation in their gold recovery circuits.
“We intend to focus on where the gold is in tight zones,” Mr Foster added. “We don’t need a lot of ounces to make money because we already have the (processing) plant there.”
For further information contact: Elizabeth Lewis-Gray, executive director, Ground Developments Pty Ltd. (03) 5465 3193 or Email: [email protected]
Included in the purchase of the project was the mining lease and associated exploration acreage, the processing plant, six four wheel drive vehicles, an excavator worth about $175,000, established offices and a fully equipped workshop. “The major asset though is a fully operational, 500,000 tonne per annum plant, worth between $7 million and $10 million to replace,” Mr Foster said.
“We believe this is the most comprehensive
GOLDMINCO BUYS BALLARAT EAST GOLD PROJECT
Caltex managing director, Dr Ian Blackburne and AIP education officer, Elaine Grossman at the launch of the petroleum industry interactive CD-Rom.
Rising Victorian gold explorer, Goldminco NL, has bought the Ballarat East gold project from former operator, Canadian based William Resources Inc.
During its operational phase William Australia produced 12,000 ounces of gold processing ore with an average head grade of about 1 gram of gold per tonne. 13
MINISTER SURVEYS INDUSTRY Victorian Deputy Premier and Minister for Agriculture and Resources Pat McNamara, spent time recently monitoring progress at the exciting gold and base metal exploration project at Mt Wellington operated by New Holland Mining NL. The Mt Wellington project, in Victoria’s far eastern highlands, has produced a number of highly prospective targets where sampling and drilling is already yielding some highly encouraging results. Drilling of six prime targets at Mt Wellington over the Summer exploration season is expected to be complete by May with the company hoping to closely define potential orebodies for more detailed delineation during the year. One of the most prospective targets is a volcanic hosted massive sulphide system producing high gold grades at the Hill 800 site located in rugged terrain high above the Jamieson River, about 35 km north west of the town of Licola. The Minister also spent a day in Bass Strait looking over the West Tuna and Bream B oil platforms. The two concrete gravity platforms have sharply lifted Bass Strait crude oil production. In the past year Bass Strait field operator, Esso Australia, has spent more than $350 million on field development programs including infill drilling at existing fields, wildcat exploration wells seeking new fields and development of production from previously discovered fields.
REGULAR FEATURE
REGULAR FEATURE
Industry News MINERS SIGN GREEN CODE OF CONDUCT Five more Victorian mining companies have signed the Minerals Industry Code for Environmental Management, one of the most stringent programs in the world, as a major signal of their intent to operate in the most environmentally friendly manner possible. Victoria’s three big power companies, Yallourn Energy, Loy Yang Power and Hazelwood Power, all signed the code along with Bendigo Mining and Ballarat Goldfields at a ceremony held in Victoria’s Parliament house during February. Deputy Premier and Minister for Agriculture and Resources, Pat McNamara, attended the ceremony along with the chairman of the Australian Minerals Council and chief executive of MIM Ltd, Mr Nick Stump.
Victorian companies are leading the commitment to environmental management with a total of 12 already signatories to the Code. Nationally 32 companies have signed the code.
Industry News to achieve outcomes far beyond our individual capacities.”
educational tool of its type,” AIP chairman, Dr Ian Blackburne, said at the launch.
NATIONAL MINING TRAINING CENTRE BREAKS NEW GROUND
Apart from providing tailored solutions for mining problems, the NMTC also runs the certificate of mining course at the Central Gippsland Institute of TAFE, a course already recognised as providing a sound base for mine staff at open cut mines.
“It provides well produced and balanced information for high school students and teachers and covers everything from the dinosaur age and the formation of oil deposits through to our future energy requirements.”
A network of four small Australian businesses is securing lucrative contracts internationally and locally for its unique training and consulting programs aimed at the mining industry.
“Establishing and maintaining a skilled workforce must be a high priority for any mining operation to compete successfully today,” Mr Waghorne said.
The National Mining Training Centre Network, formed in 1997, is conducting training programs in Victoria and NSW while exporting its services to Indonesia and the US.
The NMTC recently assisted with a major training overhaul at the Yallourn Energy brown coal mine in the Latrobe Valley.
The code, which was launched in December 1996, is the centrepiece of a renewed commitment by the Australian minerals industry responding to community concerns about environmental management.
The company draws on the experience of its four network members, Geo-Eng Ltd, WBM Pty Ltd, the Central Gippsland Institute of TAFE and the Try Consulting Group to provide geology, geotechnical and mine engineering experience, mechanical and electrical engineering, materials handling, technical and trade training and human resources and supervisory training.
Victoria’s Perseverance Corp Ltd had previously signed the code and received its certificate of membership at the Parliament House ceremony.
Director of the National Mining Training Centre and principal engineer of Geo Eng, Ted Waghorne, said: “Forming a network has enabled our businesses to combine expertise
Yallourn mine manager, Gary Smith, said: “Our training program now dovetails with the strategic business plan. This was achieved by the NMTC working with our people to develop and implement a solid, competency based training program.” For further information contact: Ted Waghorne, NMTC on (03) 9651 9312.
PETROLEUM INDUSTRY CD ROM LAUNCHED After a two year development period, a major new teaching resource, in the form of a compact disc, has been launched by the Australian petroleum industry. A joint development by the Australian Institute of Petroleum and the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, the CD-ROM is designed to provide teachers and students with information about oil and gas from the origins of the resource, through exploration and production techniques to the refining, marketing and distribution processes for petroleum products. The CD also addresses environmental and safety issues and the future prospects for the industry. Designed to cater for year 7 to year 10 students, the CD reflects the national curriculum in science, studies of society and environment, mathematics and economics.
12
Mining week was launched in Bendigo by (left to right) Willie McLucas, chairman of Perseverance Mining Corp, the Mayor of the City of Greater Bendigo, Cr Barry Ackerman and David Lea, Executive Director Minerals and Petroleum Victoria. We have no idea of the identity of the fellow in overalls.
Visual aids on the CD include video material, animations and virtual reality tours across oil and gas resources and the full range of oil industry activities. For further information contact AIP (03) 9614 1466 or access the Website at: http://www.fusion.com.au/discovery
VICTORIAN GOLD UNITS REACH SPAIN The innovative Victorian gold recovery unit, the In-line Pressure Jig, developed by the Avoca based firm, Ground Developments Pty Ltd, is gathering an international reputation with three of its units installed recently at the El Valle gold and copper mine in Spain. Mine owner, Rio Narcea Goldmines SA, became the first overseas mine to install the jigs after project manager, Signet Engineering, recommended the units over other gravity separation systems.
Goldminco bought the project and associated assets in a deal costing $200,000 in the form of cash and shares after William Australia, the local subsidiary of the parent company, closed the mine in the wake of the falling gold price. Rodney Foster, managing director of Goldminco, said the company also provided William Resources 1.5 million Goldminco shares as part of the settlement of the deal in which Goldminco also replaced a $746,000 environmental bond applicable to the project. William Australia had operated Ballarat East as a large tonnage, low grade gold mine. “We view it as a selective mine, taking the higher grade ore bodies,” Mr Foster said.
The El Valle mine, in Asturias, Spain, is the first to install the In-line Pressure Jig in a copper/gold project, but Signet Engineering design manager Ian Thomas, said the units had produced excellent results to date with high availability of equipment, high metal recoveries and low operating costs.
His primary targets are the Nerrina pit area and the White Horse Ridge, which last year thrilled Ballarat fossickers by producing many gold nuggets and pieces of native gold, virtually from the surface, proving that the oldtimers did not take all the gold from Ballarat.
Two Australian copper/gold projects, Ernest Henry and Selwyn, both in Queensland, are now evaluating IPJ units for possible installation in their gold recovery circuits.
“We intend to focus on where the gold is in tight zones,” Mr Foster added. “We don’t need a lot of ounces to make money because we already have the (processing) plant there.”
For further information contact: Elizabeth Lewis-Gray, executive director, Ground Developments Pty Ltd. (03) 5465 3193 or Email: [email protected]
Included in the purchase of the project was the mining lease and associated exploration acreage, the processing plant, six four wheel drive vehicles, an excavator worth about $175,000, established offices and a fully equipped workshop. “The major asset though is a fully operational, 500,000 tonne per annum plant, worth between $7 million and $10 million to replace,” Mr Foster said.
“We believe this is the most comprehensive
GOLDMINCO BUYS BALLARAT EAST GOLD PROJECT
Caltex managing director, Dr Ian Blackburne and AIP education officer, Elaine Grossman at the launch of the petroleum industry interactive CD-Rom.
Rising Victorian gold explorer, Goldminco NL, has bought the Ballarat East gold project from former operator, Canadian based William Resources Inc.
During its operational phase William Australia produced 12,000 ounces of gold processing ore with an average head grade of about 1 gram of gold per tonne. 13
MINISTER SURVEYS INDUSTRY Victorian Deputy Premier and Minister for Agriculture and Resources Pat McNamara, spent time recently monitoring progress at the exciting gold and base metal exploration project at Mt Wellington operated by New Holland Mining NL. The Mt Wellington project, in Victoria’s far eastern highlands, has produced a number of highly prospective targets where sampling and drilling is already yielding some highly encouraging results. Drilling of six prime targets at Mt Wellington over the Summer exploration season is expected to be complete by May with the company hoping to closely define potential orebodies for more detailed delineation during the year. One of the most prospective targets is a volcanic hosted massive sulphide system producing high gold grades at the Hill 800 site located in rugged terrain high above the Jamieson River, about 35 km north west of the town of Licola. The Minister also spent a day in Bass Strait looking over the West Tuna and Bream B oil platforms. The two concrete gravity platforms have sharply lifted Bass Strait crude oil production. In the past year Bass Strait field operator, Esso Australia, has spent more than $350 million on field development programs including infill drilling at existing fields, wildcat exploration wells seeking new fields and development of production from previously discovered fields.
VICTORIAN RESOURCES
VICTORIAN RESOURCES
Victoria’s mineral, oil and gas resources
Mildura
O
EXPLORATION STATUS
MAJOR PETROLEUM RESOURCES
Area available for exploration application
Gas Fields
GOLD
Areas becoming available for exploration
A B C D E F G H J K L M N
P
MAJOR MINES/DEVELOPMENTS
Oil Fields
(Please see moratorium list for available dates)
Area currently under exploration licence tenure or application
2
SwanHill
Area unavailable for exploration (National Parks etc)
NON-METALLIC MINERALS O Victorian Gypsum P RZM & Aberfoyle Q Rio Tinto R Kaolin Aust S Osterfield T ACI
1
Echuca Shepparton
1
Wangaratta
T
3
BROWN COAL
6 1
Horsham
C Q
H
Bendigo
4
2
3
J
Stawell Gold Mines Sedimentary Holdings Reef Mining Goldminco Ballarat Goldfields Alliance Gold Bendigo Mining Ranger Gold Perseverance Exploration Australian Gold Devel. Perseverance Mining Duketon Goldfields Mount Conqueror Minerals
4 L
S
G
7 K
Benambra
M
F 3
StawellA Ararat
3
B
5
E 4 1
2
2
3
Ballarat
3
2
2 3
9
R
Mansfield
3
8
3 3
2 4
Hamilton
4
3
1
2
2
1 1
Wood's Point
N
D
MELBOURNE
2
1
2 1
Orbost
Maddingl
1
Bairnsdale
1
Werribee
Lakes Entrance
Walhalla Geelong Alc
Portland
Yallour Hazelw
Warrnambool
Loy
4
IN BAS D N A PSL GIP
OTWAY BASIN 14
15
MAJOR EXPLORATION PROJECTS 2
General area of major exploration project
NO 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44
COMPANY Alcaston Alliance Alliance Ballarat Cons Centaur Rio Tinto Crest - Goldminco Duketon Gold Golden Heritage Golden Triangle Golden Triangle Highlake Res Highlake Res Highlake Res - Brady Intrepid Metex Mt Wellington North - CRA exp Osprey Gold Osprey Gold Perseverance M Platsearch - Hume RGC Exp St Barbara - Golden H Sedimentary Vic Gold - Mines & Res Zephyr Min Continent - Range Gawler Gold Goldminco Goldminco Goldminco Goldminco Alliance Fortuna Golden Heritage Hardrock Exploration Highlake Res Highlake Res Highlake Res Perseverance - New H Range River Range River Reef Mining
VICTORIAN RESOURCES
VICTORIAN RESOURCES
Victoria’s mineral, oil and gas resources
Mildura
O
EXPLORATION STATUS
MAJOR PETROLEUM RESOURCES
Area available for exploration application
Gas Fields
GOLD
Areas becoming available for exploration
A B C D E F G H J K L M N
P
MAJOR MINES/DEVELOPMENTS
Oil Fields
(Please see moratorium list for available dates)
Area currently under exploration licence tenure or application
2
SwanHill
Area unavailable for exploration (National Parks etc)
NON-METALLIC MINERALS O Victorian Gypsum P RZM & Aberfoyle Q Rio Tinto R Kaolin Aust S Osterfield T ACI
1
Echuca Shepparton
1
Wangaratta
T
3
BROWN COAL
6 1
Horsham
C Q
H
Bendigo
4
2
3
J
Stawell Gold Mines Sedimentary Holdings Reef Mining Goldminco Ballarat Goldfields Alliance Gold Bendigo Mining Ranger Gold Perseverance Exploration Australian Gold Devel. Perseverance Mining Duketon Goldfields Mount Conqueror Minerals
4 L
S
G
7 K
Benambra
M
F 3
StawellA Ararat
3
B
5
E 4 1
2
2
3
Ballarat
3
2
2 3
9
R
Mansfield
3
8
3 3
2 4
Hamilton
4
3
1
2
2
1 1
Wood's Point
N
D
MELBOURNE
2
1
2 1
Orbost
Maddingl
1
Bairnsdale
1
Werribee
Lakes Entrance
Walhalla Geelong Alc
Portland
Yallour Hazelw
Warrnambool
Loy
4
IN BAS D N A PSL GIP
OTWAY BASIN 14
15
MAJOR EXPLORATION PROJECTS 2
General area of major exploration project
NO 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44
COMPANY Alcaston Alliance Alliance Ballarat Cons Centaur Rio Tinto Crest - Goldminco Duketon Gold Golden Heritage Golden Triangle Golden Triangle Highlake Res Highlake Res Highlake Res - Brady Intrepid Metex Mt Wellington North - CRA exp Osprey Gold Osprey Gold Perseverance M Platsearch - Hume RGC Exp St Barbara - Golden H Sedimentary Vic Gold - Mines & Res Zephyr Min Continent - Range Gawler Gold Goldminco Goldminco Goldminco Goldminco Alliance Fortuna Golden Heritage Hardrock Exploration Highlake Res Highlake Res Highlake Res Perseverance - New H Range River Range River Reef Mining
LICENCE REVIEW
COMPETITIVE VICTORIA
Mineral Licences
As a place to explore for minerals, develop a mine or operate a service business for the mining and energy industries, Victoria has it all. Its compact size, skilled workforce and large population base make it an ideal place to do business. While these claims have long been made about Victoria, a major study has now confirmed
EXPLORATION LICENCES GRANTED JANUARY/MARCH 1998
what Victorians already knew.
TITLE NO.
STATUS
EVENT
MAP
PRIMARY OWNER
EVENT DATE
EXPIRY DATE
EL 4175 EL 4239 EL 4170 EL 3926 EL 4240 EL 4247 EL 4241 EL 4220 EL 4227 EL 4246 EL 4251 EL 4230 EL 4229 EL 4245 EL 4248 EL 4219 EL 4218 EL 4256 EL 4257 EL 4258 EL 4259 EL 4264 EL 4262 EL 4232 EL 4263 EL 4266 EL 4274 EL 4273 EL 4272 EL 4180
CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CAN/AM CURRENT CURRENT CAN/AM CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CAN/AM CURRENT CURRENT CAN/AM CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CAN/AM CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT
GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT
BENDIGO MATLOCK CHARLTON MELBOURNE HEATHCOTE NOWINGI HEATHCOTE BENDIGO MANSFIELD LINDSAY BALLARAT BENDIGO BENDIGO CANNAWIGAR KERANG BENDIGO DUNOLLY DUNOLLY DUNOLLY DUNOLLY DUNOLLY DUNOLLY DUNOLLY HEATHCOTE DUNOLLY YEA KERANG KERANG SWAN HILL WEDDERBURN
Metex Resources NL Alcaston Mining NL Gawler Gold and Mineral Exploration NL Varuno Pty Ltd Perseverance Exploration Pty Ltd Basin Minerals NL Goldminco NL Goldminco NL Mount Wellington Gold NL Basin Minerals NL Okanagan Ventures Pty Ltd Harvest Exploration Pty Ltd Reef Mining NL Basin Minerals NL Basin Minerals NL Reef Mining NL Playford Resources NL Reef Mining NL Reef Mining NL Central Victorian Gold NL Central Victorian Gold NL Reef Mining NL Central Victorian GOld NL Perseverance Exploration Pty Ltd Playford Resources NL Perseverance Mining Pty Ltd Basin Minerals NL Basin Minerals NL Basin Minerals NL Wehla Gold NL
16/01/98 16/01/98 16/01/98 16/01/98 16/01/98 22/01/98 22/01/98 22/01/98 22/01/98 22/01/98 04/02/98 04/02/98 16/02/98 16/02/98 16/02/98 16/02/98 19/02/98 10/03/98 10/03/98 10/03/98 10/03/98 12/03/98 12/03/98 12/03/98 26/03/98 26/03/98 27/03/98 26/03/98 26/03/98 26/03/98
16/01/2000 16/01/2000 16/01/2000 16/01/2000 27/02/98 22/01/2000 22/01/2000 22/01/98 22/01/2000 22/01/2000 04/02/2000 04/02/2000 12/03/98 16/02/2000 16/02/2000 12/03/98 19/02/2000 10/03/2000 10/03/2000 10/03/2000 10/03/2000 12/03/2000 12/03/2000 12/03/98 26/03/2000 26/03/2000 27/03/2000 26/03/2000 26/03/2000 26/03/2000
EXPLORATION LICENCES SURRENDERED, CANCELLED OR EXPIRED JANUARY/MARCH 1998 TITLE NO.
STATUS
MAP
PRIMARY OWNER
EVENT DATE
EXPIRY DATE
EL 3696 EL 3843 EL 4169 EL 3638 EL 3751 EL 3719 EL 3975 EL 3752 EL 4187 EL 4188 EL 4189 EL 3909 EL 3184 EL 3910 EL 3908 EL 3474 EL 3766 EL 3352 EL 3948 EL 3725 EL 3959 EL 3860
EXPIRED EXPIRED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED CANCELLED SURRENDERED CANCELLED CANCELLED EXPIRED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED EXPIRED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED
ALBURY BAIRNSDALE ST ARNAUD CASTLEMAINE ARARAT MURRINDAL CORANGAMITE CRESWICK MATLOCK MATLOCK MATLOCK DUNOLLY MATLOCK DUNOLLY DUNOLLY WILLAURA CASTLEMAINE CASTLEMAINE ST ARNAUD DUNOLLY ST ARNAUD CHARLTON
Abernathy Boy Pty Ltd Sammeta Resources NL Gawler Gold and Mineral Exploration NL Golden Triangle Resources NL Peter S Forwood Metex Resources NL Kenneth B Vallance Mount Rommel Mining Pty Ltd Alcaston Mining NL Alcaston Mining NL Alcaston Mining NL Armcorp Resources NL Plutonic Operations Limited Armcorp Resources NL Armcorp Resources NL North Mining Ltd Playford Resources NL Four Prospect Pty Ltd Mines and Resources Australia Pty Ltd Greyfield Pty Ltd Talager Pty Ltd Echuvan Pty ltd
17/01/98 17/01/98 19/01/98 19/01/98 19/01/98 19/01/98 19/01/98 19/01/98 22/01/98 22/01/98 22/01/98 04/02/98 04/02/98 04/02/98 04/02/98 06/02/98 16/02/98 19/02/98 27/02/98 28/02/98 10/03/98 10/03/98
17/01/98 17/01/98 19/01/98 19/01/98 19/01/98 19/01/98 19/01/98 19/01/98 22/01/98 22/01/98 22/01/98 04/02/98 04/02/98 04/02/98 04/02/98 06/02/98 16/02/98 19/02/98 27/02/98 28/02/98 10/03/98 10/03/98
TITLE NO.
STATUS
EVENT
MAP
PRIMARY OWNER
EVENT DATE
EXPIRY DATE
MIN 5218 MIN 5213
CURRENT CURRENT
GRANT GRANT
CRESWICK KERANG
DRAGI BOYOVSKI CARL WANDIN
26/02/98 10/03/98
26/02/2003 10/03/2018
TITLE NO.
STATUS
MAP
PRIMARY OWNER
EVENT DATE
EXPIRY DATE
MIN 4881 MIN 4056 MIN 4862 MIN 4946 MIN 4868 MIN 4741 MIN 4215
EXPIRED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED EXPIRED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED
DUNOLLY BEAUFORT WANGARATTA NAGAMBIE DUNOLLY DUNOLLY DUNOLLY
Four Prospect Pty Ltd Kinex Pty Ltd Michael McQuade Rushworth Mines NL Wanbanna Pty Ltd Playford Resources NL Wanbanna Pty Ltd
06/01/98 19/01/98 04/02/98 24/02/98 10/03/98 10/03/98 10/03/98
06/01/98 19/01/98 04/02/98 10/06/95 10/03/98 10/03/98 10/03/98
MINING LICENCES GRANTED JANUARY/MARCH 1998
16
and Territories and backs its competitive advantages with infrastructure and a pro-active government. Competitive Victoria is open for business.
V
ictoria can ride out the Asian crisis. Government support remains as strong as it ever was.
That’s the message of the major report ‘Competitive Victoria’ launched at the Victorian Mining Week conference in March. Competitive Victoria presents compelling evidence that Victoria offers advantages to the minerals and energy industries not available in other States. The vast majority of Victoria’s surface area is available for exploration, the State offers major opportunities for significant new discoveries and strong Government support is available for mining and energy business developments. While all of Australia’s States and Territories offer some of these ingredients, the Competitive Victoria Report documents just how Victoria offers a unique package as an investment destination. The report, compiled jointly by Minerals and Petroleum Victoria and the Victorian Chamber of Mines, assesses Victoria’s competitiveness for mineral exploration and mining and documents the key advantages, including measurable cost advantages, of operating in Victoria. The report studied a range of factors including geological prospectivity, provision of geological and digital tenement information, the efficiency of regulatory processes, royalty systems, land access, environmental issues, infrastructure, housing, transportation and employment. Victoria came up trumps by most measures.
GEOLOGICAL PROSPECTIVITY
MINING LICENCES SURRENDERED, CANCELLED OR EXPIRED JANUARY/MARCH 1998
ABBREVIATIONS: SURR - SURRENDERED, CANC - CANCELLATION CAN/AM - CANCELLED/AMALGAMATED
Victoria is highly competitive with other Australian States
Victoria remains one of the world’s major mineral provinces with strong geological prospectivity and a continuing high potential for major mineral discoveries. Even though gold production is currently low, Victoria’s total gold production still accounts for 32 per cent of all gold ever mined in Australia and two per cent of all
Vic offers more, and can weather the Asian crisis
gold ever mined in the entire world. Victoria has produced almost 2,500 tonnes of gold, worth approximately $A35 billion at today’s prices and, while the old-time miners were incredibly active, it is widely believed that only a fraction of Victoria’s gold resource has been mined. The state remains significantly underexplored by modern methods. The report points out that in all of the world’s major gold fields more gold has been won during secondary stages of development than was ever mined during the initial rushes. Victoria is expected to be no different. In many of the major gold producing areas of the central gold fields, Ballarat, Bendigo, Maldon, Castlemaine, Clunes, Daylesford and Maryborough, major new exploration efforts are underway to test for extensions of the known fields at depth and in broader regional settings. In many cases only small fractions of the known fields have been mined and vast areas remain unexplored by modern methods. ‘There is great potential to find completely new fields below the shallow cover of the Murray Basin and beneath basalt cover within the goldfields area itself,’ the report says. The Victorian Government’s $18.5 million VIMP airborne survey program has primarily been aimed at locating targets and geological structures within the basement rocks. ‘There is as much unexplored ground under shallow cover adjoining existing (gold) fields as exists in the whole central Victoria goldfields region,’ the report adds. ‘This area represents direct extensions of known goldfields, and may well be equally as prosperous as the adjacent known goldfields.’ Victoria is also rich in brown coal, petroleum, mineral sands and industrial minerals. The VIMP program, which has flown extensive airborne gravity and radiometric studies, is being hailed as a major contributor to a host of new discoveries and targets, principally the 17
mineral sands discoveries in the Murray Basin made recently by RGC Ltd and the Japanese owned RZM group. These discoveries have sparked a ground staking rush with commitments from the two companies to spend $8.6 million on mine development and exploration over the next two years. The VIMP program has given Victoria a significant competitive advantage by supplying the mineral exploration industry with better quality airborne surveys. VIMP surveys are flown at 200 metre spacings, rather than the traditional 400 metre grids, and are providing more complete, upto-date coverage of the State. Industry has clearly been attracted to the new data with exploration lease applications soaring every time a new data package is released.
The Competitive Victoria Report says there is great potential for new gold discoveries in many parts of the State.
LICENCE REVIEW
COMPETITIVE VICTORIA
Mineral Licences
As a place to explore for minerals, develop a mine or operate a service business for the mining and energy industries, Victoria has it all. Its compact size, skilled workforce and large population base make it an ideal place to do business. While these claims have long been made about Victoria, a major study has now confirmed
EXPLORATION LICENCES GRANTED JANUARY/MARCH 1998
what Victorians already knew.
TITLE NO.
STATUS
EVENT
MAP
PRIMARY OWNER
EVENT DATE
EXPIRY DATE
EL 4175 EL 4239 EL 4170 EL 3926 EL 4240 EL 4247 EL 4241 EL 4220 EL 4227 EL 4246 EL 4251 EL 4230 EL 4229 EL 4245 EL 4248 EL 4219 EL 4218 EL 4256 EL 4257 EL 4258 EL 4259 EL 4264 EL 4262 EL 4232 EL 4263 EL 4266 EL 4274 EL 4273 EL 4272 EL 4180
CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CAN/AM CURRENT CURRENT CAN/AM CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CAN/AM CURRENT CURRENT CAN/AM CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CAN/AM CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT CURRENT
GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT GRANT
BENDIGO MATLOCK CHARLTON MELBOURNE HEATHCOTE NOWINGI HEATHCOTE BENDIGO MANSFIELD LINDSAY BALLARAT BENDIGO BENDIGO CANNAWIGAR KERANG BENDIGO DUNOLLY DUNOLLY DUNOLLY DUNOLLY DUNOLLY DUNOLLY DUNOLLY HEATHCOTE DUNOLLY YEA KERANG KERANG SWAN HILL WEDDERBURN
Metex Resources NL Alcaston Mining NL Gawler Gold and Mineral Exploration NL Varuno Pty Ltd Perseverance Exploration Pty Ltd Basin Minerals NL Goldminco NL Goldminco NL Mount Wellington Gold NL Basin Minerals NL Okanagan Ventures Pty Ltd Harvest Exploration Pty Ltd Reef Mining NL Basin Minerals NL Basin Minerals NL Reef Mining NL Playford Resources NL Reef Mining NL Reef Mining NL Central Victorian Gold NL Central Victorian Gold NL Reef Mining NL Central Victorian GOld NL Perseverance Exploration Pty Ltd Playford Resources NL Perseverance Mining Pty Ltd Basin Minerals NL Basin Minerals NL Basin Minerals NL Wehla Gold NL
16/01/98 16/01/98 16/01/98 16/01/98 16/01/98 22/01/98 22/01/98 22/01/98 22/01/98 22/01/98 04/02/98 04/02/98 16/02/98 16/02/98 16/02/98 16/02/98 19/02/98 10/03/98 10/03/98 10/03/98 10/03/98 12/03/98 12/03/98 12/03/98 26/03/98 26/03/98 27/03/98 26/03/98 26/03/98 26/03/98
16/01/2000 16/01/2000 16/01/2000 16/01/2000 27/02/98 22/01/2000 22/01/2000 22/01/98 22/01/2000 22/01/2000 04/02/2000 04/02/2000 12/03/98 16/02/2000 16/02/2000 12/03/98 19/02/2000 10/03/2000 10/03/2000 10/03/2000 10/03/2000 12/03/2000 12/03/2000 12/03/98 26/03/2000 26/03/2000 27/03/2000 26/03/2000 26/03/2000 26/03/2000
EXPLORATION LICENCES SURRENDERED, CANCELLED OR EXPIRED JANUARY/MARCH 1998 TITLE NO.
STATUS
MAP
PRIMARY OWNER
EVENT DATE
EXPIRY DATE
EL 3696 EL 3843 EL 4169 EL 3638 EL 3751 EL 3719 EL 3975 EL 3752 EL 4187 EL 4188 EL 4189 EL 3909 EL 3184 EL 3910 EL 3908 EL 3474 EL 3766 EL 3352 EL 3948 EL 3725 EL 3959 EL 3860
EXPIRED EXPIRED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED CANCELLED SURRENDERED CANCELLED CANCELLED EXPIRED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED EXPIRED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED
ALBURY BAIRNSDALE ST ARNAUD CASTLEMAINE ARARAT MURRINDAL CORANGAMITE CRESWICK MATLOCK MATLOCK MATLOCK DUNOLLY MATLOCK DUNOLLY DUNOLLY WILLAURA CASTLEMAINE CASTLEMAINE ST ARNAUD DUNOLLY ST ARNAUD CHARLTON
Abernathy Boy Pty Ltd Sammeta Resources NL Gawler Gold and Mineral Exploration NL Golden Triangle Resources NL Peter S Forwood Metex Resources NL Kenneth B Vallance Mount Rommel Mining Pty Ltd Alcaston Mining NL Alcaston Mining NL Alcaston Mining NL Armcorp Resources NL Plutonic Operations Limited Armcorp Resources NL Armcorp Resources NL North Mining Ltd Playford Resources NL Four Prospect Pty Ltd Mines and Resources Australia Pty Ltd Greyfield Pty Ltd Talager Pty Ltd Echuvan Pty ltd
17/01/98 17/01/98 19/01/98 19/01/98 19/01/98 19/01/98 19/01/98 19/01/98 22/01/98 22/01/98 22/01/98 04/02/98 04/02/98 04/02/98 04/02/98 06/02/98 16/02/98 19/02/98 27/02/98 28/02/98 10/03/98 10/03/98
17/01/98 17/01/98 19/01/98 19/01/98 19/01/98 19/01/98 19/01/98 19/01/98 22/01/98 22/01/98 22/01/98 04/02/98 04/02/98 04/02/98 04/02/98 06/02/98 16/02/98 19/02/98 27/02/98 28/02/98 10/03/98 10/03/98
TITLE NO.
STATUS
EVENT
MAP
PRIMARY OWNER
EVENT DATE
EXPIRY DATE
MIN 5218 MIN 5213
CURRENT CURRENT
GRANT GRANT
CRESWICK KERANG
DRAGI BOYOVSKI CARL WANDIN
26/02/98 10/03/98
26/02/2003 10/03/2018
TITLE NO.
STATUS
MAP
PRIMARY OWNER
EVENT DATE
EXPIRY DATE
MIN 4881 MIN 4056 MIN 4862 MIN 4946 MIN 4868 MIN 4741 MIN 4215
EXPIRED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED EXPIRED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED SURRENDERED
DUNOLLY BEAUFORT WANGARATTA NAGAMBIE DUNOLLY DUNOLLY DUNOLLY
Four Prospect Pty Ltd Kinex Pty Ltd Michael McQuade Rushworth Mines NL Wanbanna Pty Ltd Playford Resources NL Wanbanna Pty Ltd
06/01/98 19/01/98 04/02/98 24/02/98 10/03/98 10/03/98 10/03/98
06/01/98 19/01/98 04/02/98 10/06/95 10/03/98 10/03/98 10/03/98
MINING LICENCES GRANTED JANUARY/MARCH 1998
16
and Territories and backs its competitive advantages with infrastructure and a pro-active government. Competitive Victoria is open for business.
V
ictoria can ride out the Asian crisis. Government support remains as strong as it ever was.
That’s the message of the major report ‘Competitive Victoria’ launched at the Victorian Mining Week conference in March. Competitive Victoria presents compelling evidence that Victoria offers advantages to the minerals and energy industries not available in other States. The vast majority of Victoria’s surface area is available for exploration, the State offers major opportunities for significant new discoveries and strong Government support is available for mining and energy business developments. While all of Australia’s States and Territories offer some of these ingredients, the Competitive Victoria Report documents just how Victoria offers a unique package as an investment destination. The report, compiled jointly by Minerals and Petroleum Victoria and the Victorian Chamber of Mines, assesses Victoria’s competitiveness for mineral exploration and mining and documents the key advantages, including measurable cost advantages, of operating in Victoria. The report studied a range of factors including geological prospectivity, provision of geological and digital tenement information, the efficiency of regulatory processes, royalty systems, land access, environmental issues, infrastructure, housing, transportation and employment. Victoria came up trumps by most measures.
GEOLOGICAL PROSPECTIVITY
MINING LICENCES SURRENDERED, CANCELLED OR EXPIRED JANUARY/MARCH 1998
ABBREVIATIONS: SURR - SURRENDERED, CANC - CANCELLATION CAN/AM - CANCELLED/AMALGAMATED
Victoria is highly competitive with other Australian States
Victoria remains one of the world’s major mineral provinces with strong geological prospectivity and a continuing high potential for major mineral discoveries. Even though gold production is currently low, Victoria’s total gold production still accounts for 32 per cent of all gold ever mined in Australia and two per cent of all
Vic offers more, and can weather the Asian crisis
gold ever mined in the entire world. Victoria has produced almost 2,500 tonnes of gold, worth approximately $A35 billion at today’s prices and, while the old-time miners were incredibly active, it is widely believed that only a fraction of Victoria’s gold resource has been mined. The state remains significantly underexplored by modern methods. The report points out that in all of the world’s major gold fields more gold has been won during secondary stages of development than was ever mined during the initial rushes. Victoria is expected to be no different. In many of the major gold producing areas of the central gold fields, Ballarat, Bendigo, Maldon, Castlemaine, Clunes, Daylesford and Maryborough, major new exploration efforts are underway to test for extensions of the known fields at depth and in broader regional settings. In many cases only small fractions of the known fields have been mined and vast areas remain unexplored by modern methods. ‘There is great potential to find completely new fields below the shallow cover of the Murray Basin and beneath basalt cover within the goldfields area itself,’ the report says. The Victorian Government’s $18.5 million VIMP airborne survey program has primarily been aimed at locating targets and geological structures within the basement rocks. ‘There is as much unexplored ground under shallow cover adjoining existing (gold) fields as exists in the whole central Victoria goldfields region,’ the report adds. ‘This area represents direct extensions of known goldfields, and may well be equally as prosperous as the adjacent known goldfields.’ Victoria is also rich in brown coal, petroleum, mineral sands and industrial minerals. The VIMP program, which has flown extensive airborne gravity and radiometric studies, is being hailed as a major contributor to a host of new discoveries and targets, principally the 17
mineral sands discoveries in the Murray Basin made recently by RGC Ltd and the Japanese owned RZM group. These discoveries have sparked a ground staking rush with commitments from the two companies to spend $8.6 million on mine development and exploration over the next two years. The VIMP program has given Victoria a significant competitive advantage by supplying the mineral exploration industry with better quality airborne surveys. VIMP surveys are flown at 200 metre spacings, rather than the traditional 400 metre grids, and are providing more complete, upto-date coverage of the State. Industry has clearly been attracted to the new data with exploration lease applications soaring every time a new data package is released.
The Competitive Victoria Report says there is great potential for new gold discoveries in many parts of the State.
COMPETITIVE VICTORIA
COMPETITIVE VICTORIA
Size cuts costs
New Holland Mining managing director, Alan Fraser explains the major Mt Wellington gold discovery to Pat McNamara, Minister for Agriculture and Resources.
Victoria is one of the most easily accessible States in which to operate, despite unfounded worries about the relatively large population base in the smallest State in Australia. A total of 87 per cent of the State is available for exploration with 68.2 per cent of the State owned under private freehold title, by far the highest level of any Australian State, eliminating the uncertainties associated with Native Title claims over much of Victoria.
For every dollar invested by the Government to date through the VIMP initiative, a total of $9 has been spent by the mineral exploration and mining industry, a figure which is expected to grow sharply over the next few years. In the three years since the start of the VIMP program, exploration spending in Victoria has increased from $12.2 million to a record $51.9 million in 1996/97. Exploration spending in Victoria has increased from $53.40 per square kilometre to $227.10 per sq/km compared to the national average which has risen from $81.90 sq/km to $148.80 sq/km over the same period. VIMP has been credited with a major role in 10 possible new gold mining projects, several heavy mineral sand projects and an exciting, potentially significant gold discovery at Mount Wellington in Victoria’s eastern mountains. The cost and availability of the VIMP data and other geological information from the Geological Survey of Victoria (GSV) makes it readily available to all explorers. Importantly Victoria has no royalty on gold production and only a 2.75 per cent royalty on other minerals produced so once a resource is located the cost of production is also attractive compared to that in other States.
LAND ACCESS A viable mining industry requires significant areas of land to be available for exploration, particularly since, on average, only one in every 1,000 exploration projects develops into a mine. Across Australia there is a growing trend for the exploration industry to be locked out of increasingly large areas of land due to changing public attitudes to the environment and to the rights of indigenous people.
In Victoria only 100 sq/km of crown leasehold land exists carrying with it the uncertainty of the High Court’s Wik decision which rules that Native Title can co-exist with the rights of leaseholders.
As well, an environmental bond, to ensure rehabilitation is undertaken, is levied on all projects. Companies not complying with their environmental bonds risk forfeiture of the bond as well as being liable to a fine of up to $10,000. Bond levels range from a few hundred dollars to the order of $15 million for major mines such as Latrobe Valley coal mines. Environmental requirements and bond levels are considerably higher in developed countries and the requirements of MPV reflects this trend. The mining industry has endorsed this approach and generally accepts the impor-
In Queensland and the Northern Territory exploration licences over Crown leasehold land are not being issued while the title uncertainty exists.
‘Victoria will not be soft on environmental protection,’ the Competitive Victoria report states. In Victoria, all mining projects are subject to some form of environmental impact assessments before planning approvals are issued.
Climatically, Victoria offers a benign weather regime, allowing almost year-round access to land. The State also has extensive road, rail and air infrastructure and operates several major ports along the coastline.
this pic is from corporate brochure - you should have this
Findings based on a National Conditions of Employment Survey by the Australian Mines and Metals Association show wage costs for mine staff and senior management are significantly lower in Victoria. Above: Victoria’s new feldspar mine near Beechworth will supply the entire Australian market.
tance of environmental management as an integral part of the planning and operation of mining and exploration sites. The Competitive Victoria report found that ‘Victoria’s environmental requirements are no more rigorous than conditions the (mining) industry has adopted of its own volition’.
COPIES OF THE REPORT ARE AVAILABLE FROM : Minerals and Petroleum Victoria Level 15, 8 Nicholson Street East Melbourne Telephone (03) 9637 8535 Website: www.nre.vic.gov.au/minpet/index.htm Victorian Chamber of Mines 4th floor, 53 Queen Street Melbourne Telephone (03) 9629 1851 Website: www.vicmins.com.au
18
This means that likely mining areas are close to labour and support services as well as infrastructure.
The Competitive Victoria Report provides strong evidence that wages paid to all levels of staff at Victorian mines remain considerably lower than in other States.
Even then, the Minister has the right to waive the consent requirement.
Victoria is the smallest Australian mainland state but has the second largest population of 4.5 million people which means that sound environmental management and regulation of mining projects must be key concerns for Government, the industry and the community.
Yet all parts of the State can be reached in one day’s drive from its capital Melbourne and no part of the State is more than 200 km from a major regional centre with a population of greater than 40,000.
Victoria has by far the greatest population density of any Australian State with 20.1 persons per sq/km, ahead of NSW and Tasmania with 7.7 and 7.0 respectively.
In Victoria a ‘fair and reasonable’ landowner access and compensation agreement has been developed for any disturbance caused by exploration on private land, while landowners’ consent to mining activity is only required in the near vicinity of improvements.
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
V
ictoria is Australia’s smallest mainland state covering nearly 228,000 square kilometres with 1,200 km of coastline, equivalent to the size of England, Wales and Scotland combined.
In remote areas of WA, Qld and the NT, skilled staff are paid a premium for an isolated lifestyle. In Victoria, employees can work in or near large towns offering excellent quality of life and allowing companies to offer lower rates of pay while retaining the ability to attract quality staff. Non-wage costs are also demonstrably lower in Victoria, largely due to the substantially larger population base and its distribution. “The relative isolation of operations in larger jurisdictions results in a number of extra costs for employers,’ the study found. ‘These additional costs: i.e. area and travel allowances, accommodation assistance, fly-in, fly-out costs, are generally not applicable in Victoria.’ It is unusual to establish exploration camps in Victoria as most of the accommodation requirements for both exploration and mining are met through existing towns and cities.
Victoria’s abundant infrastructure is a vital part of the state’s attraction. Infrastructure, such as power supply or natural gas pipelines, may need to be upgraded but this usually comes at a fraction of the cost of establishing entirely new systems to support a mine project. And the time required to provide such services is shorter as a consequence. 19
Loy Yang brown coal mine is one of Australia’s most productive mines.
COMPETITIVE VICTORIA
COMPETITIVE VICTORIA
Size cuts costs
New Holland Mining managing director, Alan Fraser explains the major Mt Wellington gold discovery to Pat McNamara, Minister for Agriculture and Resources.
Victoria is one of the most easily accessible States in which to operate, despite unfounded worries about the relatively large population base in the smallest State in Australia. A total of 87 per cent of the State is available for exploration with 68.2 per cent of the State owned under private freehold title, by far the highest level of any Australian State, eliminating the uncertainties associated with Native Title claims over much of Victoria.
For every dollar invested by the Government to date through the VIMP initiative, a total of $9 has been spent by the mineral exploration and mining industry, a figure which is expected to grow sharply over the next few years. In the three years since the start of the VIMP program, exploration spending in Victoria has increased from $12.2 million to a record $51.9 million in 1996/97. Exploration spending in Victoria has increased from $53.40 per square kilometre to $227.10 per sq/km compared to the national average which has risen from $81.90 sq/km to $148.80 sq/km over the same period. VIMP has been credited with a major role in 10 possible new gold mining projects, several heavy mineral sand projects and an exciting, potentially significant gold discovery at Mount Wellington in Victoria’s eastern mountains. The cost and availability of the VIMP data and other geological information from the Geological Survey of Victoria (GSV) makes it readily available to all explorers. Importantly Victoria has no royalty on gold production and only a 2.75 per cent royalty on other minerals produced so once a resource is located the cost of production is also attractive compared to that in other States.
LAND ACCESS A viable mining industry requires significant areas of land to be available for exploration, particularly since, on average, only one in every 1,000 exploration projects develops into a mine. Across Australia there is a growing trend for the exploration industry to be locked out of increasingly large areas of land due to changing public attitudes to the environment and to the rights of indigenous people.
In Victoria only 100 sq/km of crown leasehold land exists carrying with it the uncertainty of the High Court’s Wik decision which rules that Native Title can co-exist with the rights of leaseholders.
As well, an environmental bond, to ensure rehabilitation is undertaken, is levied on all projects. Companies not complying with their environmental bonds risk forfeiture of the bond as well as being liable to a fine of up to $10,000. Bond levels range from a few hundred dollars to the order of $15 million for major mines such as Latrobe Valley coal mines. Environmental requirements and bond levels are considerably higher in developed countries and the requirements of MPV reflects this trend. The mining industry has endorsed this approach and generally accepts the impor-
In Queensland and the Northern Territory exploration licences over Crown leasehold land are not being issued while the title uncertainty exists.
‘Victoria will not be soft on environmental protection,’ the Competitive Victoria report states. In Victoria, all mining projects are subject to some form of environmental impact assessments before planning approvals are issued.
Climatically, Victoria offers a benign weather regime, allowing almost year-round access to land. The State also has extensive road, rail and air infrastructure and operates several major ports along the coastline.
this pic is from corporate brochure - you should have this
Findings based on a National Conditions of Employment Survey by the Australian Mines and Metals Association show wage costs for mine staff and senior management are significantly lower in Victoria. Above: Victoria’s new feldspar mine near Beechworth will supply the entire Australian market.
tance of environmental management as an integral part of the planning and operation of mining and exploration sites. The Competitive Victoria report found that ‘Victoria’s environmental requirements are no more rigorous than conditions the (mining) industry has adopted of its own volition’.
COPIES OF THE REPORT ARE AVAILABLE FROM : Minerals and Petroleum Victoria Level 15, 8 Nicholson Street East Melbourne Telephone (03) 9637 8535 Website: www.nre.vic.gov.au/minpet/index.htm Victorian Chamber of Mines 4th floor, 53 Queen Street Melbourne Telephone (03) 9629 1851 Website: www.vicmins.com.au
18
This means that likely mining areas are close to labour and support services as well as infrastructure.
The Competitive Victoria Report provides strong evidence that wages paid to all levels of staff at Victorian mines remain considerably lower than in other States.
Even then, the Minister has the right to waive the consent requirement.
Victoria is the smallest Australian mainland state but has the second largest population of 4.5 million people which means that sound environmental management and regulation of mining projects must be key concerns for Government, the industry and the community.
Yet all parts of the State can be reached in one day’s drive from its capital Melbourne and no part of the State is more than 200 km from a major regional centre with a population of greater than 40,000.
Victoria has by far the greatest population density of any Australian State with 20.1 persons per sq/km, ahead of NSW and Tasmania with 7.7 and 7.0 respectively.
In Victoria a ‘fair and reasonable’ landowner access and compensation agreement has been developed for any disturbance caused by exploration on private land, while landowners’ consent to mining activity is only required in the near vicinity of improvements.
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
V
ictoria is Australia’s smallest mainland state covering nearly 228,000 square kilometres with 1,200 km of coastline, equivalent to the size of England, Wales and Scotland combined.
In remote areas of WA, Qld and the NT, skilled staff are paid a premium for an isolated lifestyle. In Victoria, employees can work in or near large towns offering excellent quality of life and allowing companies to offer lower rates of pay while retaining the ability to attract quality staff. Non-wage costs are also demonstrably lower in Victoria, largely due to the substantially larger population base and its distribution. “The relative isolation of operations in larger jurisdictions results in a number of extra costs for employers,’ the study found. ‘These additional costs: i.e. area and travel allowances, accommodation assistance, fly-in, fly-out costs, are generally not applicable in Victoria.’ It is unusual to establish exploration camps in Victoria as most of the accommodation requirements for both exploration and mining are met through existing towns and cities.
Victoria’s abundant infrastructure is a vital part of the state’s attraction. Infrastructure, such as power supply or natural gas pipelines, may need to be upgraded but this usually comes at a fraction of the cost of establishing entirely new systems to support a mine project. And the time required to provide such services is shorter as a consequence. 19
Loy Yang brown coal mine is one of Australia’s most productive mines.
NEWS REPORT
COMPETITIVE VICTORIA
Sands give new base to local industry
M
ineral sands discoveries in Victoria’s north west have attracted the attention of the industry’s heavyweights with a major staking rush taking shape across the entire Murray Basin as companies vie with each other to be first into production. The first major mine is expected to be operating near Robinvale later this year as mineral sand miner, RZM corporation, a subsidiary of Japanese group Nissho Iwai, opens the Wemen deposit. Patrick McManus, operations manager for RZM, already a major mineral sands producer in NSW, told the Mining Week conference during March that 50 per cent of the entire Murray Basin had been pegged in the past 18 months. All the big Australian mineral sands companies are now major acreage holders in the area with RGC Ltd, Westralian Sands, WMC Ltd, Aberfoyle and Giralia Resources all taking strategic positions. “Some of these companies have found beach type deposits,” Mr McManus said. “It’s likely some mines will come out of it.” Mr McManus added that it would require probably 30 million tonnes of heavy mineral to underwrite a mineral processing plant. RZM and partner Aberfoyle had not found that volume as yet at their Wemen site but will be considering a move to develop a mine later in the year. Initial capital cost of developing the Wemen project is expected to be around $12m to $13m. This would cover the cost of opening a small strip mine using a dredge to access the heavy minerals. Waste material would be dumped behind the dredge to refill the mined area which would be later redressed with topsoil and the land returned to its previous use. The orebody at Wemen contains about 4 per cent heavy mineral and stage 1 of the project
Left: The Old Treasury vaults once housed all of Victoria’s gold production. Below: Victoria’s beautiful 19th century Old Treasury building will become even more popular when the Built on Gold Museum opens in September.
Treasury
vaults
to house gold
would involve production of 20,000 tonnes a year of rutile and 9000 tonnes of zircon.
museum
Magnetic minerals would be stockpiled on-site for eventual production of a clean ilmenite product. Mining would advance at the rate of about 450 tonnes an hour using RZM’s existing dredges currently used at Tomago (NSW). Processing of rutile and zircon would be performed at the Tomago plant but stage 2 of the Wemen project was likely to involve the plant’s relocation to a site closer to Wemen. The final stage of the Wemen project would be to build a new plant to produce ilmenite from the stockpiled magnetic fractions stockpiled on site. RZM’s chief geologist, Tony Mason, told the Conference that the Wemen deposits comprised two separate beach deposits up to 12 km in length averaging 200 metres wide and up to seven metres thick. The geological resource had been calculated using a one per cent cut off grade and a minimum thickness of 4 metres. Total geological resources stand at about 134 million tonnes of sand at a grade of about 3 per cent heavy mineral. Mr Mason said the rutile and zircon products were of good quality and should meet ready market acceptance.
Technology and tradition are the key components of a new, permanent gold industry museum to be established by the Victorian Government in the Old Treasury building in Spring Street, Melbourne.
energetic environment, but the coarser grained deposits such as Wemen were formed along beaches similar to the current beach deposits of both eastern and Western Australia. Known coarse deposits of mineral sands in the Murray Basin include the Wemen deposit, RGC’s Kulwin discovery and the Birthday Gift and Jack’s Tank orebodies found by Aberfoyle and CRA (now Rio Tinto). The mineral sands deposits are thought to have originated in the eastern highlands of Victoria and NSW and, after erosion, been carried into the Murray Basin sea by the ancient Lachlan, Murray and Darling rivers. RZM currently has its environmental effects statement on public display before seeking formal approval to open the Murray Basin’s first mineral sands mining project, a development that offers great new potential for Victoria’s growing mining industry.
The Murray Basin is an old inland sea in which wave action concentrated the heavy minerals along old beaches. Fine grained mineral sand deposits, such as those discovered by Rio Tinto near Horsham at the WIM 150 deposit, are thought to have formed some distance offshore in a less 20
Above: The VIMP survey program has been a major contributor to mineral sands discoveries. Here, VIMP Co-ordinator Bob Dalgarno checks some of the latest data.
he museum will bring the story of Victoria’s gold industry to life thanks to a sponsorship deal by the banking group Rothschilds, a major player in the Australian gold industry and in particular in the Victorian gold sector.
T
in Ballarat, Rothschilds bought the Royal Mint operating lease and became the largest gold exporters in Australia.
Fittingly, the gold museum will be housed in the vaults of the Treasury building, vaults originally constructed to contain the gold won from the Victorian fields over a century ago when hundreds of thousands of fortune seeking miners from all over the world rushed to the diggings.
Victoria once enjoyed the world’s highest level of wealth per capita based around the fortunes extracted from the goldfields of Ballarat, Bendigo, Maldon and other mining centres.
By 1853, the group had refined over nine tonnes of gold from Ballarat and the company remains the largest gold exporter in Australia.
Displays at the new museum will trace the history of gold in Victoria from its earliest beginnings to contemporary times. Launching the gold museum, Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, of NM Rothschild & Sons (Australia) Ltd, said Rothschild’s involvement in the museum concept was an ideal way of celebrating his company’s bicentenary. He added that Victoria and Rothschild had a significant common link to the gold industry which was embodied by the Treasury building, long regarded as one of the finest Australian examples of the architecture of the late 1900’s, encouraged by the wealth generated from the goldfields. Rothschild’s connection to Victoria began in 1847 when a mine was named Wheal Rothschild by the company’s Australian agent. In 1852, two years after gold was discovered 21
The Treasury building was completed in 1862 and, after a detailed restoration, remain one of Victoria’s most significant buildings. The gold museum will house Rothschild’s collection of gold bars among other items and will present a modern look into the past. Different themes, using audio-visual displays, soundscapes, interactive displays and computers will be presented to provide a detailed and enjoyable experience. A direct link to the Australian Stock Exchange will provide live and current gold prices providing a 21st century feel to the museum while locked into the historical ambience of the gold industry.
REGULAR FEATURE
SPECIAL FEATURE
Modern technology and a new approach to the problem of separating antimony and gold has given the Costerfield area near Bendigo a potentially major new lease of life. A unique ore processing system, developed over several years of intense research, now allows the separation of high purity gold and antimony maximising the value of each metal to the field’s owners, Australian Gold Developments Ltd. New exploration has already identified about three years’ supply of sulphide ore but the search for repetitions of the rich vein systems could support a mine for a decade or more. AGD managing director Ian Price, explained the Costerfield project’s future to Victoria’s Mining Week conference.
Now AGD has the opportunity to thoroughly explore the Costerfield area for new ore resources while processing already known reserves.
Left: Less than a year after mining, rehabilitated land at Costerfield is returning to a useable condition.
For the next year, AGD will process oxide ore resources taken from surface deposits close to its existing mill facility.
Below: Gold is recovered from the complex Costerfield ore using a standard Carbon in Pulp plant currently in full production.
The oxide ore, and substantial volumes of mine tailings, will be re-processed to extract the valuable remaining metals while a major exploration effort will be made to find new, large scale, underground sulphide orebodies.
Separation skills give mine new life
AGD managing director Ian Price, is confident the company will be successful. “The problem of antimony/gold separation is now solved,” he said at a presentation to a Mining Week conference.
Ian Price, managing director, Australian Gold Developments NL.
F
or more than 100 years the rich gold ore in the Costerfield mineral field has teased miners with its high grades.
Incredibly rich mineralised veins have been mined in the past with pods of almost pure metal taken from the ground, but metallurgy failed most of the old miners. The miners could see rich gold ore but were frustrated by an equally rich antimony metal content which was almost impossible to separate from the gold by processing facilities of the day. Much of the ore mined from Costerfield had to be sent overseas to smelters where the cost of separating the metals gave the miners a very meagre return. But now the problem of separating antimony from the gold in the Costerfield ores has been solved and the project is poised to resume production, and this time the field appears to have a long-term future. In several earlier phases of mining at Costerfield numerous shallow shafts and open pits were sunk by miners chasing the rich oxidised ores near the surface. One or two shafts penetrated the deeper sulphide ore zones with one mine extracting 200,000 tonnes of complex ore grading 15 per cent Antimony (Sb) and 15 grams per tonne of gold (Au), equivalent to half an ounce of gold in every tonne. While the metallurgical problem of separating the gold and antimony at Costerfield has been a major problem, it has also proved to be a bonus for Australian Gold Developments NL. 22
Because the ore is complex, few companies have considered the field a viable exploration or development prospect resulting in very little exploration since mining stopped.
“In the past, the high gold grade was not paid for because of the penalty element in the concentrate provided to smelters which had to separate out the antimony.” AGD’s aim has been to develop a process which enables economic separation of both antimony and gold at the mine site, allowing the company to achieve full value for both metals. Through a major research and development project spanning the past three years in partnership with Macquarie Bank, Diamin Resources NL, ABN Amro and the Commonwealth Government’s AusIndustry Department, AGD has developed a unique leaching process which can easily and cheaply separate the two metals. By using modern electrowinning technology, AGD is then able to produce high purity gold bullion and antimony metal for direct sale. Using the new process, antimony metal with a purity of 99.6 per cent is produced, a product of great interest to Asian buyers. Antimony was once used as a key metal in armaments, and in its metallic form is now commonly used as an alloy with lead in lead acid batteries It is also used extensively as a fire retardant ingredient in plastics in the form SbO3. Dubbed the ‘Advanced Antimony/Gold extraction technique’, AGD now has the opportunity to dramatically upgrade the value of ore found within the Costerfield region. To provide short term cashflow, the oxide ores and tailings, some of which have already been treated three times, will be reprocessed to extract the remaining metals.
the main Brunswick line of reef which was the main historical source of ore from the region.
off the exploration and fully develop the mining and processing facilities.
“AGD has a good understanding of the geology of the Costerfield area,” Mr Price said.
AGD’s initial studies indicate the potential for a plant producing 3,500 tonnes of pure antimony metal a year as well as 15,000 to 20,000 ounces of gold.
“We’ve done a lot of work on the geological model looking for repetitions of the existing orebodies. We are looking for a repeat of the main Costerfield mine at depth.” The host rocks in the Costerfield region were originally laid down as sedimentary mudstone formations which were later folded and faulted providing fluid pathways in which the common antimony and gold metals were deposited in a classic sulphide system. “We’ve got a lot of exploration work to do but we think we can lay down a ten-year mine life,” Mr Price added. Based on earlier work AGD already has a minimum three-year mine life from known sulphide ore zones.
The current ore for processing contains an average of 2.2 g/t of gold.
So far, $2.7 million has been spent at Costerfield on the metallurgical studies and development of the existing ore processing plant.
Initially AGD’s exploration effort will focus on
Another $5 million is still required to finish 23
At that rate of production, AGD would account for about three per cent of world antimony production, giving it a major place in the market against the world’s biggest producer, China. Mr Price said Chinese production consisted almost entirely of concentrates of mixed metal content, a product far less attractive to buyers than the pure metallic form to be produced by AGD. Drilling at several sites at Costerfield is due to start within weeks with an intensive exploration effort to be conducted during the next year. F O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N C O N TA C T:
Ian Price - Australian Gold Developments NL Telephone: (03) 9699 1811
REGULAR FEATURE
SPECIAL FEATURE
Modern technology and a new approach to the problem of separating antimony and gold has given the Costerfield area near Bendigo a potentially major new lease of life. A unique ore processing system, developed over several years of intense research, now allows the separation of high purity gold and antimony maximising the value of each metal to the field’s owners, Australian Gold Developments Ltd. New exploration has already identified about three years’ supply of sulphide ore but the search for repetitions of the rich vein systems could support a mine for a decade or more. AGD managing director Ian Price, explained the Costerfield project’s future to Victoria’s Mining Week conference.
Now AGD has the opportunity to thoroughly explore the Costerfield area for new ore resources while processing already known reserves.
Left: Less than a year after mining, rehabilitated land at Costerfield is returning to a useable condition.
For the next year, AGD will process oxide ore resources taken from surface deposits close to its existing mill facility.
Below: Gold is recovered from the complex Costerfield ore using a standard Carbon in Pulp plant currently in full production.
The oxide ore, and substantial volumes of mine tailings, will be re-processed to extract the valuable remaining metals while a major exploration effort will be made to find new, large scale, underground sulphide orebodies.
Separation skills give mine new life
AGD managing director Ian Price, is confident the company will be successful. “The problem of antimony/gold separation is now solved,” he said at a presentation to a Mining Week conference.
Ian Price, managing director, Australian Gold Developments NL.
F
or more than 100 years the rich gold ore in the Costerfield mineral field has teased miners with its high grades.
Incredibly rich mineralised veins have been mined in the past with pods of almost pure metal taken from the ground, but metallurgy failed most of the old miners. The miners could see rich gold ore but were frustrated by an equally rich antimony metal content which was almost impossible to separate from the gold by processing facilities of the day. Much of the ore mined from Costerfield had to be sent overseas to smelters where the cost of separating the metals gave the miners a very meagre return. But now the problem of separating antimony from the gold in the Costerfield ores has been solved and the project is poised to resume production, and this time the field appears to have a long-term future. In several earlier phases of mining at Costerfield numerous shallow shafts and open pits were sunk by miners chasing the rich oxidised ores near the surface. One or two shafts penetrated the deeper sulphide ore zones with one mine extracting 200,000 tonnes of complex ore grading 15 per cent Antimony (Sb) and 15 grams per tonne of gold (Au), equivalent to half an ounce of gold in every tonne. While the metallurgical problem of separating the gold and antimony at Costerfield has been a major problem, it has also proved to be a bonus for Australian Gold Developments NL. 22
Because the ore is complex, few companies have considered the field a viable exploration or development prospect resulting in very little exploration since mining stopped.
“In the past, the high gold grade was not paid for because of the penalty element in the concentrate provided to smelters which had to separate out the antimony.” AGD’s aim has been to develop a process which enables economic separation of both antimony and gold at the mine site, allowing the company to achieve full value for both metals. Through a major research and development project spanning the past three years in partnership with Macquarie Bank, Diamin Resources NL, ABN Amro and the Commonwealth Government’s AusIndustry Department, AGD has developed a unique leaching process which can easily and cheaply separate the two metals. By using modern electrowinning technology, AGD is then able to produce high purity gold bullion and antimony metal for direct sale. Using the new process, antimony metal with a purity of 99.6 per cent is produced, a product of great interest to Asian buyers. Antimony was once used as a key metal in armaments, and in its metallic form is now commonly used as an alloy with lead in lead acid batteries It is also used extensively as a fire retardant ingredient in plastics in the form SbO3. Dubbed the ‘Advanced Antimony/Gold extraction technique’, AGD now has the opportunity to dramatically upgrade the value of ore found within the Costerfield region. To provide short term cashflow, the oxide ores and tailings, some of which have already been treated three times, will be reprocessed to extract the remaining metals.
the main Brunswick line of reef which was the main historical source of ore from the region.
off the exploration and fully develop the mining and processing facilities.
“AGD has a good understanding of the geology of the Costerfield area,” Mr Price said.
AGD’s initial studies indicate the potential for a plant producing 3,500 tonnes of pure antimony metal a year as well as 15,000 to 20,000 ounces of gold.
“We’ve done a lot of work on the geological model looking for repetitions of the existing orebodies. We are looking for a repeat of the main Costerfield mine at depth.” The host rocks in the Costerfield region were originally laid down as sedimentary mudstone formations which were later folded and faulted providing fluid pathways in which the common antimony and gold metals were deposited in a classic sulphide system. “We’ve got a lot of exploration work to do but we think we can lay down a ten-year mine life,” Mr Price added. Based on earlier work AGD already has a minimum three-year mine life from known sulphide ore zones.
The current ore for processing contains an average of 2.2 g/t of gold.
So far, $2.7 million has been spent at Costerfield on the metallurgical studies and development of the existing ore processing plant.
Initially AGD’s exploration effort will focus on
Another $5 million is still required to finish 23
At that rate of production, AGD would account for about three per cent of world antimony production, giving it a major place in the market against the world’s biggest producer, China. Mr Price said Chinese production consisted almost entirely of concentrates of mixed metal content, a product far less attractive to buyers than the pure metallic form to be produced by AGD. Drilling at several sites at Costerfield is due to start within weeks with an intensive exploration effort to be conducted during the next year. F O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N C O N TA C T:
Ian Price - Australian Gold Developments NL Telephone: (03) 9699 1811
OIL-GAS NEWS
Strong interest expected for ten new oil areas
V
ictoria has joined the offshore petroleum exploration rush with a total of ten new permits offered for exploration in the latest round of bidding, with each block likely attract strong interest from the exploration industry. Two permits in the Gippsland Basin amidst the existing Bass Strait oil and gas fields are likely to be keenly sought, while the other eight areas, in the offshore Otway Basin area off the coast of western Victoria, have strong potential for new oil and gas discoveries. The permits offered include a large area of Commonwealth controlled waters as well as a number of areas located in State controlled waters within the three nautical mile coastal zone.
In the Gippsland Basin, the permit, designated V98-1, is being offered for bids by the joint authority while the Victorian government is offering the inshore permit, designated 98G1(v) to accompany its deeper water counterpart. In the Otway Basin, four permits in Commonwealth Government controlled waters and four inshore permits in Victorian Government waters have been offered for bids. The V98-1 permit covers 12 graticular blocks over an area of 718 sq/km in water depths from 20 metres, rising to 75 metres in the southern areas. Area V98-1 straddles the well-known structural features, the Northern Terrace and the Northern Platform, and is bounded to the north and south by the Lake Wellington and Rosedale
fault systems while the inshore area 98G-1(v) lies entirely on the northern platform. Previous holders of the V98-1 area have mapped several prospects and leads associated with the top-Latrobe, intra-Latrobe and baseLatrobe sediments, the host of the vast majority of the existing Bass Strait oil and gas fields. Over the northern or inshore parts of both permits, little seismic survey data has been collected with the central and southern portion of V98-1 more closely surveyed with several closely spaced grids. In the permit, the wells, Flathead-1, Whale-1 and Judith-1, were all previously drilled although later seismic reinterpretation has revealed both Flathead and Whale were drilled off structure. The Baleen-1 and Patricia-1 gas discovery wells were drilled in the adjacent retention lease area and are tied to V98-1 by existing seismic lines.
OFFSHORE OTWAY BASIN
Strong prospectivity remains in both permits with the V98-1 area believed to have been charged with hydrocarbons from the same source rocks which have generated oil and gas across the entire basin area. Known leads and prospects for future exploration include the Narwhal lead, a prospect updip from the known Whale feature and the West Flathead prospect. The deep water Otway Basin permits, designated V98-2, V98-3, V98-4 and V98-5 as well as the four inshore permits, 98-01(v), 98-02(v), 98-03(v) and 98-04(v), are all open for bids.
OFFSHORE GIPPSLAND BASIN
The inshore permits cover the coastline out to the three nautical mile limit all the way along the Victorian coast from Cape Otway westwards past Warrnambool and Portland to the South Australian border. Only 18 wildcat wells have been drilled in the Victorian portion of the offshore Otway Basin region with another 11 wells drilled in the offshore South Australian portion of the basin. Out of those wells, three significant gas/condensate discoveries have been made in the Troas 1, La Bella 1 and Minerva 1 and Minerva 2A wells. Most of the other wells were sited based on data extracted from poor quality pre-1985 seismic surveys and were clearly located off-structure. Gas and oil shows in the Otway Basin offshore drilling to date were encountered in the Pecten 1A, Breaksea Reef 1, Crayfish 1 and
24
Normanby 1 wildcat wells. The Minerva gas discovery is currently being studied for development by operator, BHP Petroleum. The deeper water permits, V98-3 and V98-5 and the inshore 98-01(v) area, cover much of an area known as the Voluta trough in which 10 wells have already been drilled with mixed results. The permits range in water depth from 50 metres to over 500 metres in the south. Geologically, the permits comprise a large area of Cretaceous age sediments in which thick Deltaic zones developed in the prospective Paaratte formation, a largely untested play concept. Eight previous wells have been drilled in the offshore Voluta Trough region with only two in block V98-3 when the Triton-1A well tested the Cretaceous age Waarre formation and Nautilus-1 tested the Tertiary formations. In both wells reservoir quality was found to be poor although La Bella-1, drilled adjacent to V98-3, found a good quality reservoir. La Bella-1, now held under a retention lease by BHP Petroleum, intersected good quality sandstones hosting a moderate sized gas field but new play concepts have been developed for the areas by Minerals and Petroleum Victoria including shallower plays. Four wells have been drilled in V98-5 with the most recent, Normanby 1, recovering free gas ranging up to pentane from the low porosity Waarre formation. Shallower plays with better potential remain untested within the blocks and it is possible that sandstones eroded from the tilted fault block at Normanby 1 may be present off the major highs. Both the Bridgewater 1 and Voluta 1 wells, previously drilled in the permit, can be shown to have been drilled off-structure. The most prospective play in the permits is expected to the be Lower Paarratte formation targeting ancient Deltaic sandstone formations. V98-2 and V98-4 and the inshore permits 9802(v) to 98-04(v) are located over the Mussel Platform on which 10 early wells were drilled, six within the current acreage release area. Gas flowed to the surface from the Pecten 1 wildcat well at a rate of 145,000 standard cubic feet a day, but no follow up well has been drilled while BHP Petroleum drilled several wells, including Minerva and La Bella in the area.
BHP found the area to be heavily faulted but MPV has now suggested a divergent structural framework over the area which may upgrade prospectivity.
Australia is experiencing an oil exploration boom with ten new permit areas likely to attract strong interest.
The Mussel Platform developed in the late Cretaceous. Although lightly explored, it has already yielded the Minerva and La Bella gas fields and the Pecten accumulation.
the gazetted blocks with initial success coming with the Minerva and La Bella wells but the others proved disappointing.
There are many untested leads, some of substantial size and adjacent to recent discoveries. The key hydrocarbon source rock is the Eumeralla formation, interpreted to be oil and gas mature in the gazetted areas. The Eumeralla-Waarre formation has proved successful in more than a dozen known discoveries onshore in the Otway Basin. Six wells were drilled by BHP Petroleum in 25
Two wells were drilled on the Prawn Platform in an area heavily dissected by faulting. Later interpretations by MPV have suggested an alternative structural framework which may upgrade this area. The general perception of the Mussel Platform is that it is gas prone but the area is under-explored and sufficient oil shows around the Otway Basin suggest that this view needs to be modified.
OIL-GAS NEWS
Strong interest expected for ten new oil areas
V
ictoria has joined the offshore petroleum exploration rush with a total of ten new permits offered for exploration in the latest round of bidding, with each block likely attract strong interest from the exploration industry. Two permits in the Gippsland Basin amidst the existing Bass Strait oil and gas fields are likely to be keenly sought, while the other eight areas, in the offshore Otway Basin area off the coast of western Victoria, have strong potential for new oil and gas discoveries. The permits offered include a large area of Commonwealth controlled waters as well as a number of areas located in State controlled waters within the three nautical mile coastal zone.
In the Gippsland Basin, the permit, designated V98-1, is being offered for bids by the joint authority while the Victorian government is offering the inshore permit, designated 98G1(v) to accompany its deeper water counterpart. In the Otway Basin, four permits in Commonwealth Government controlled waters and four inshore permits in Victorian Government waters have been offered for bids. The V98-1 permit covers 12 graticular blocks over an area of 718 sq/km in water depths from 20 metres, rising to 75 metres in the southern areas. Area V98-1 straddles the well-known structural features, the Northern Terrace and the Northern Platform, and is bounded to the north and south by the Lake Wellington and Rosedale
fault systems while the inshore area 98G-1(v) lies entirely on the northern platform. Previous holders of the V98-1 area have mapped several prospects and leads associated with the top-Latrobe, intra-Latrobe and baseLatrobe sediments, the host of the vast majority of the existing Bass Strait oil and gas fields. Over the northern or inshore parts of both permits, little seismic survey data has been collected with the central and southern portion of V98-1 more closely surveyed with several closely spaced grids. In the permit, the wells, Flathead-1, Whale-1 and Judith-1, were all previously drilled although later seismic reinterpretation has revealed both Flathead and Whale were drilled off structure. The Baleen-1 and Patricia-1 gas discovery wells were drilled in the adjacent retention lease area and are tied to V98-1 by existing seismic lines.
OFFSHORE OTWAY BASIN
Strong prospectivity remains in both permits with the V98-1 area believed to have been charged with hydrocarbons from the same source rocks which have generated oil and gas across the entire basin area. Known leads and prospects for future exploration include the Narwhal lead, a prospect updip from the known Whale feature and the West Flathead prospect. The deep water Otway Basin permits, designated V98-2, V98-3, V98-4 and V98-5 as well as the four inshore permits, 98-01(v), 98-02(v), 98-03(v) and 98-04(v), are all open for bids.
OFFSHORE GIPPSLAND BASIN
The inshore permits cover the coastline out to the three nautical mile limit all the way along the Victorian coast from Cape Otway westwards past Warrnambool and Portland to the South Australian border. Only 18 wildcat wells have been drilled in the Victorian portion of the offshore Otway Basin region with another 11 wells drilled in the offshore South Australian portion of the basin. Out of those wells, three significant gas/condensate discoveries have been made in the Troas 1, La Bella 1 and Minerva 1 and Minerva 2A wells. Most of the other wells were sited based on data extracted from poor quality pre-1985 seismic surveys and were clearly located off-structure. Gas and oil shows in the Otway Basin offshore drilling to date were encountered in the Pecten 1A, Breaksea Reef 1, Crayfish 1 and
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Normanby 1 wildcat wells. The Minerva gas discovery is currently being studied for development by operator, BHP Petroleum. The deeper water permits, V98-3 and V98-5 and the inshore 98-01(v) area, cover much of an area known as the Voluta trough in which 10 wells have already been drilled with mixed results. The permits range in water depth from 50 metres to over 500 metres in the south. Geologically, the permits comprise a large area of Cretaceous age sediments in which thick Deltaic zones developed in the prospective Paaratte formation, a largely untested play concept. Eight previous wells have been drilled in the offshore Voluta Trough region with only two in block V98-3 when the Triton-1A well tested the Cretaceous age Waarre formation and Nautilus-1 tested the Tertiary formations. In both wells reservoir quality was found to be poor although La Bella-1, drilled adjacent to V98-3, found a good quality reservoir. La Bella-1, now held under a retention lease by BHP Petroleum, intersected good quality sandstones hosting a moderate sized gas field but new play concepts have been developed for the areas by Minerals and Petroleum Victoria including shallower plays. Four wells have been drilled in V98-5 with the most recent, Normanby 1, recovering free gas ranging up to pentane from the low porosity Waarre formation. Shallower plays with better potential remain untested within the blocks and it is possible that sandstones eroded from the tilted fault block at Normanby 1 may be present off the major highs. Both the Bridgewater 1 and Voluta 1 wells, previously drilled in the permit, can be shown to have been drilled off-structure. The most prospective play in the permits is expected to the be Lower Paarratte formation targeting ancient Deltaic sandstone formations. V98-2 and V98-4 and the inshore permits 9802(v) to 98-04(v) are located over the Mussel Platform on which 10 early wells were drilled, six within the current acreage release area. Gas flowed to the surface from the Pecten 1 wildcat well at a rate of 145,000 standard cubic feet a day, but no follow up well has been drilled while BHP Petroleum drilled several wells, including Minerva and La Bella in the area.
BHP found the area to be heavily faulted but MPV has now suggested a divergent structural framework over the area which may upgrade prospectivity.
Australia is experiencing an oil exploration boom with ten new permit areas likely to attract strong interest.
The Mussel Platform developed in the late Cretaceous. Although lightly explored, it has already yielded the Minerva and La Bella gas fields and the Pecten accumulation.
the gazetted blocks with initial success coming with the Minerva and La Bella wells but the others proved disappointing.
There are many untested leads, some of substantial size and adjacent to recent discoveries. The key hydrocarbon source rock is the Eumeralla formation, interpreted to be oil and gas mature in the gazetted areas. The Eumeralla-Waarre formation has proved successful in more than a dozen known discoveries onshore in the Otway Basin. Six wells were drilled by BHP Petroleum in 25
Two wells were drilled on the Prawn Platform in an area heavily dissected by faulting. Later interpretations by MPV have suggested an alternative structural framework which may upgrade this area. The general perception of the Mussel Platform is that it is gas prone but the area is under-explored and sufficient oil shows around the Otway Basin suggest that this view needs to be modified.
SPECIAL FEATURE A technician calibrates an optical probe for studying new coal burning technology.
FUTURE UTILISATION OF LOW-RANK COALS IN AUSTRALIA The high moisture content of low-rank coal, around 60 per cent by weight in Victoria, militates against its transport in a bed-moist state. As a consequence, the principal use of the coal into the future is expected to remain power production at a site near the source of the fuel. Apart from the issue of the moisture content, Victoria’s low-rank coals do have a number of advantages over high-rank (black) coals for power generation. These include its relatively high reactivity, low ash and relatively low concentrations of pollutant forming species such as sulphur, nitrogen and heavy metals. Trace element concentrations, including heavy metals, are generally an order of magnitude less than those found in Australian black coal. The coals mined in Victoria occur in thick seams with little overburden. They are easily mined and being very soft, are readily milled or crushed.
New power generation technology aims at world market
The principal objective of CRC Power Generation research into low-rank coal-fired power generation is to develop technologies that will enable a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emission from the use of lowrank coal with a cost of power that is competitive with other generation technologies. Greenhouse gas emissions from Australia’s low-rank coal power generation amount to more than 45M tonnes per annum. In the longer term, advanced power generation technologies which are under research have the potential to lead to a 30 percent reduction in GHG emissions, i.e. a reduction of about 15 million tonnes per annum for the same amount of generation.
ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION The efficiency of power generation from lowrank coal in conventional pf-fired boiler plant is significantly influenced by the high moisture content of the coal.
In comparison to black coals, they contain no coal-bed methane and make no contribution to Greenhouse Gas emissions from this source.
The efficiency obtained from the modern boiler plant at Loy Yang Power Station is about 29% on a higher heating value basis (HHV) for coal moisture content of 62%. The comparable efficiency for conventional boiler plant fuelled with high-rank (black) coals is about 37%. A number of advanced technologies are under development worldwide to improve efficiency or coal-fired power production and reduce the emission levels of CO2, NOx and SOx in a cost competitive manner. These include circulating fluid bed combustion (CFBC), superciritcal pulverised fuel fired boiler (SCPF), pressurised fluid bed combustion (PFBC), integrated gasification combined cycle (ICCC) and advanced pressurised fluid bed combustion (APFBC) technologies. Most of these advanced technologies overseas are focussed on the use on high-rank (black) coals.
Comparison of Efficiencies: Low-Rank Coals
S T R AT E G I C A D VA N T A G E
(100% Carbon Conversion)
The strategic advantage of low-rank coal for power generation, particularly in Victoria, essentially relates to the very low cost of the fuel. Fuel costs for electricity production from Victorian brown coals, Australian black coals and natural gas are of the order of $3/MWh, $1l-l5/MWh and >$20 MWh respectively. SA low-rank coal costs are believed to be closer to that of black coal. The cost of fuel is, of course, only one element in the total cost of power production, the other principal components being capital cost and operations and maintenance of the power station.
Victoria’s brown coal deposits are one of the State’s most valuable assets with sufficient reserves to last more than 800 years. But power generation from brown, or low-rank coal, is facing a series of challenges which the electricity industry must overcome if Victoria is to retain its position as one of Australia’s lowest cost and most environmentally friendly generators. Dr David Brockway, executive director of the Cooperative Research Centre, outlines some of the new options for the brown coal industry.
Low-rank coals are a major energy resource for Australia and contribute significantly to the economies of Victoria and South Australia. Dr David Brockway: Victoria’s brown coal has a big future.
One third of the electricity generated from coal in Australia relies on low-rank coal as the primary energy source although this is expected to increase substantially with the introduction of a truly open and unsubsidised electricity market. 26
Australia’s known reserves of low-rank coals amount to over 220,000 million tonnes (Mt) and are found largely in Victoria and South Australia. The estimated total economically recoverable low-rank coal reserves are of the order of 60,000 Mt while total 1996/97 production in Victoria and South Australia was only 63 Mt.
The fuel cost does, however, starkly show the strategic advantage of low-rank coal in power production.
Comparison of CO2 Emission: Low-Rank Coals
S T R AT E G I C C H A L L E N G E The strategic challenge to power generation from low-rank coal is Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions.
(100% Carbon Conversion)
Carbon dioxide is only one of the known GHGs and is much less effective as a GHG than methane and nitrous oxide. The global warming potential of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are 1, 21 and 310 respectively. That is, methane, which is released in the mining of black coal but not from brown coal, has 21 times the effect of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is, however, the principal GHG produced in electricity production from fossil fuels.
27
SPECIAL FEATURE A technician calibrates an optical probe for studying new coal burning technology.
FUTURE UTILISATION OF LOW-RANK COALS IN AUSTRALIA The high moisture content of low-rank coal, around 60 per cent by weight in Victoria, militates against its transport in a bed-moist state. As a consequence, the principal use of the coal into the future is expected to remain power production at a site near the source of the fuel. Apart from the issue of the moisture content, Victoria’s low-rank coals do have a number of advantages over high-rank (black) coals for power generation. These include its relatively high reactivity, low ash and relatively low concentrations of pollutant forming species such as sulphur, nitrogen and heavy metals. Trace element concentrations, including heavy metals, are generally an order of magnitude less than those found in Australian black coal. The coals mined in Victoria occur in thick seams with little overburden. They are easily mined and being very soft, are readily milled or crushed.
New power generation technology aims at world market
The principal objective of CRC Power Generation research into low-rank coal-fired power generation is to develop technologies that will enable a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emission from the use of lowrank coal with a cost of power that is competitive with other generation technologies. Greenhouse gas emissions from Australia’s low-rank coal power generation amount to more than 45M tonnes per annum. In the longer term, advanced power generation technologies which are under research have the potential to lead to a 30 percent reduction in GHG emissions, i.e. a reduction of about 15 million tonnes per annum for the same amount of generation.
ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION The efficiency of power generation from lowrank coal in conventional pf-fired boiler plant is significantly influenced by the high moisture content of the coal.
In comparison to black coals, they contain no coal-bed methane and make no contribution to Greenhouse Gas emissions from this source.
The efficiency obtained from the modern boiler plant at Loy Yang Power Station is about 29% on a higher heating value basis (HHV) for coal moisture content of 62%. The comparable efficiency for conventional boiler plant fuelled with high-rank (black) coals is about 37%. A number of advanced technologies are under development worldwide to improve efficiency or coal-fired power production and reduce the emission levels of CO2, NOx and SOx in a cost competitive manner. These include circulating fluid bed combustion (CFBC), superciritcal pulverised fuel fired boiler (SCPF), pressurised fluid bed combustion (PFBC), integrated gasification combined cycle (ICCC) and advanced pressurised fluid bed combustion (APFBC) technologies. Most of these advanced technologies overseas are focussed on the use on high-rank (black) coals.
Comparison of Efficiencies: Low-Rank Coals
S T R AT E G I C A D VA N T A G E
(100% Carbon Conversion)
The strategic advantage of low-rank coal for power generation, particularly in Victoria, essentially relates to the very low cost of the fuel. Fuel costs for electricity production from Victorian brown coals, Australian black coals and natural gas are of the order of $3/MWh, $1l-l5/MWh and >$20 MWh respectively. SA low-rank coal costs are believed to be closer to that of black coal. The cost of fuel is, of course, only one element in the total cost of power production, the other principal components being capital cost and operations and maintenance of the power station.
Victoria’s brown coal deposits are one of the State’s most valuable assets with sufficient reserves to last more than 800 years. But power generation from brown, or low-rank coal, is facing a series of challenges which the electricity industry must overcome if Victoria is to retain its position as one of Australia’s lowest cost and most environmentally friendly generators. Dr David Brockway, executive director of the Cooperative Research Centre, outlines some of the new options for the brown coal industry.
Low-rank coals are a major energy resource for Australia and contribute significantly to the economies of Victoria and South Australia. Dr David Brockway: Victoria’s brown coal has a big future.
One third of the electricity generated from coal in Australia relies on low-rank coal as the primary energy source although this is expected to increase substantially with the introduction of a truly open and unsubsidised electricity market. 26
Australia’s known reserves of low-rank coals amount to over 220,000 million tonnes (Mt) and are found largely in Victoria and South Australia. The estimated total economically recoverable low-rank coal reserves are of the order of 60,000 Mt while total 1996/97 production in Victoria and South Australia was only 63 Mt.
The fuel cost does, however, starkly show the strategic advantage of low-rank coal in power production.
Comparison of CO2 Emission: Low-Rank Coals
S T R AT E G I C C H A L L E N G E The strategic challenge to power generation from low-rank coal is Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions.
(100% Carbon Conversion)
Carbon dioxide is only one of the known GHGs and is much less effective as a GHG than methane and nitrous oxide. The global warming potential of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are 1, 21 and 310 respectively. That is, methane, which is released in the mining of black coal but not from brown coal, has 21 times the effect of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is, however, the principal GHG produced in electricity production from fossil fuels.
27
SPECIAL FEATURE
A large scale fluid bed coal-fired furnace.
COST OF POWER A crucial factor in determining whether a technology has potential for future commercial application is the cost of its product. In the case of power generation, the levelised cost of power sent out over the life of the power station must be competitive with other available technologies. While many costs for power are quoted by various overseas sources, most relate only to a particular technology without providing the basis on which the cost is estimated, making a direct comparison to other technologies invalid.
CRC Power Generation has undertaken a comprehensive series of process evaluations for the use of low-rank coals in advanced power. The technology with the highest efficiency for power generation from low-rank coal is the Advanced Pressurised Fluid Bed Combustion (APFBC) cycle. This technology involves pressurised partial gasification (carbonisation) of the coal and pressurised combustion of the resulting char. The cycle produces fuel gas from the carboniser and hot flue gas from the char combustion. These product gases are mixed and burnt with additional air in a gas combustor. The final combustion product gas is thereby raised to a high temperature and expanded through a gas turbine. Power is generated from both the gas turbine cycle and a high pressure steam cycle at a combined efficiency of 44% (HHV). CRC Power Generation has now developed a unique process concept, which maintains a relatively high efficiency for the APFBC technology when applied to highmoisture coals. The CRC is undertaking a substantial R&D program towards commercial application of the APFBC technology.
A significant exception is an evaluation of a number of advanced power technologies for high-rank, coal-fired power plant undertaken by the International Energy Agency (IEA). In order to overcome this difficulty in relation to low-rank coal, CRC Power Generation commissioned consulting engineers Sinclair Knight Mertz (SKM) to undertake a comparative cost study of a number of advanced technologies to ensure that the costs were estimated on exactly the same basis. General conclusions that can be drawn from the comparative cost evaluation are: • the capital cost for a number of low-rank coal technologies ranges from about $1600 to $2000/kW, • the levelised cost of power sent out from a “greenfields” development based on lowrank coal is expected to be of the order of $40/MWh ($38 to $43/MWh) • the cost of power sent out from an APFBC power station is expected to be cost competitive with power from other (mature) advanced cycles fired with low-rank coal • the cost of power from an APFBC technology power station fuelled with Australian lowrank coal is expected to be cost competitive with advanced technologies fuelled by high-rank coals. This outcome is generally consistent with the IEA evaluation for black coal power genera-
28
tion, although the IEA study concluded that the cost of power sent out from an APFBC plant would in fact be lower than that from any other advanced technology.
INDUSTRY SUPPORT The Victorian and South Australian power generation industries are strong supporters of research to develop high efficiency power generation technologies. The largest industrial and commercial supporters of CRC Power Generation are the privatised or corporatised power generation successors to the SECV and ETSA - Loy Yang Power, Yallourn Energy, Hazelwood Power and Optima Energy (SA Generation Corporation)
I N T E R N AT I O N A L M A R K E T S Coal is expected to remain the principal fuel for power generation worldwide into the foreseeable future. The Asia-Pacific Rim nations require large growth in power generation to sustain their rapidly growing economies and lift the standard of living of their populations. Many of these nations (China, Indonesia, India, Thailand) have large reserves of lowrank coal which they will, in all likelihood, use for power generation. The potential impact of cost-competitive advanced power generation technologies for low-rank coal on slowing the rate of growth in world greenhouse gas emissions will arguably be significant. The growth in greenhouse gas emissions from Asia-Pacific Rim nations will swamp any reductions made in developed nations and consequently, the availability to them of cost competitive but lower emission cycles are important. Such technologies will provide substantial business opportunities for Australian business in Asia. The basic form of the AFPBC technology is expected to be similar for both low and highrank coals giving the technology a potential worldwide market. F O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N C O N TA C T:
Dr David Brockway, CRC New Technologies For Power Generation From Low-Rank Coal Unit 8, 677 Springvale Rd Mulgrave 3170 Telephone: (03) 9239 0800 Facsimile: (03) 9561 0710 e-mail: [email protected]
COMEC ADV (See August ‘97 issue)
