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Australia/New Caledonia/Papua New Guinea Mining

Mining issues front and centre in Queensland’s electoral bloodbath – by Ross Louthean (Mineweb.com – March 26, 2012)

www.mineweb.com

The incumbent Labor government in the region experienced the biggest political rout in Australia’s electoral history as the country continues to lurch to the right.

PERTH (MINEWEB) –  Even the incoming Liberal National Party (LNP) Premier of Queensland, Campbell Newman, had not anticipated the biggest political rout in Australia’s electoral history when the incumbent Labor Government lost 48 sitting members which prompted outgoing Premier Anna Bligh to quit politics.
 
With eight seats in the one-house Queensland Parliament still in the undecided category this morning the Australian Labor Party had five seats and was expected to hold another two while the LNP held 82, the Katter Australian Party (named after firebrand rural politician Bob Katter) has two, and independents retained two.
 
There will be a by-election called for Anna Bligh’s seat after she said Queenslanders had made it clear she was not wanted. Some commentators said this morning that her seat may now well go to the LNP because Australians don’t like by-elections of this type.
 
The swing against Labor was about 16% and political commentators were saying yesterday that Queensland Labor was on the nose for a variety of issues, including financial management.

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Australia finally imposes 30% mining tax – by James Grubel (Mineweb.com – March 19, 2012)

 www.mineweb.com

In a major victory for Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s minority government, Australia’s parliament passed laws for a new 30% tax on iron ore and coal mine profits on Monday, ending a two-year battle with mining companies.

CANBERRA (Reuters)  –  Australia’s parliament passed laws for a new 30 percent tax on iron ore and coal mine profits on Monday after a bruising two-year battle with mining companies, in a major victory for Prime Minister Julia Gillard and her struggling minority government.
 
The tax will affect about 30 companies, including global miners BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata, and aims to raise about A$10.6 billion ($11.2 billion) in its first three years. “This is indeed an historic day for economic reform, and an historic day for a fair go in Australia,” Treasurer Wayne Swan told parliament.
 
The tax, which is being closely watched by other resource-rich countries, is designed to spread the benefits of Australia’s resources boom to other sections of the economy by funding a cut in the company tax rate, higher payments into pension funds, and A$6 billion of infrastructure spending.

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FRASER INSTITUTE NEWS RELEASE: New Brunswick trumps Alberta as world’s No. 1 spot for mining investment;

February 23, 2012

TORONTO–New Brunswick is the world’s most attractive jurisdiction for
mineral exploration and development in the view of the international mining industry, according to the Survey of Mining Companies: 2011/2012, released today by the Fraser Institute, Canada’s leading public policy think-tank.

“New Brunswick shot to the top of the rankings as miners lauded the province for its fair, transparent, and efficient legal system and consistency in the enforcement and interpretation of existing environmental regulations,” said Fred McMahon, Fraser Institute vice-president of international policy research and coordinator of the survey.

“Combine that with a competitive taxation regime and minimal uncertainty
around disputed land claims and New Brunswick has emerged as a superstar in the view of the global mining community.”

New Brunswick vaulted to first place from 23rd last year, unseating Alberta
at the top of the global rankings as that province fell to third overall.
Quebec, which enjoyed a three-year reign at No. 1 from 2007 to 2010,
continued to lose support among mining executives as it fell to fifth place
from fourth in 2011.

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Green Australia Still Experiencing Massive Coal Boom – by John Daly (OilPrice.com – February 21, 2012)

www.oilprice.com

Australia, despite being deeply committed to curbing greenhouse gas emissions GGEs, is nonetheless experiencing a fossil fuel surge.
 
The growth comes despite a carbon tax, due to be implemented later this year, which is deeply unpopular with the country’s mining industry.

According to the government agency Geoscience Australia, in fiscal year 2011 coal exploration spending in Australia surged by 62 percent, with investment in exploration for new coal deposits reaching $520 million, with spending on exploration surging faster than any other mineral commodity. Australia’s coal is abundant and considerably less expensive than other energy sources, with the country’s black coal reserves located primarily in New South Wales and Queensland, along the eastern seaboard where the majority of electricity is generated and consumed.

The country also has substantial reserves of lower-grade brown coal (lignite), located primarily in the Gippsland Basin of Victoria, with Australia possessing an estimated 25 percent of the world’s economic demonstrated resources (EDR).

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Mined out: Australia’s skills shortage – by Chris Lo (Mining Technology.com – February 6, 2012)

http://www.mining-technology.com/

A skills shortfall is putting the Australian mining industry’s ability to meet its production commitments in doubt. Chris Lo looks at the roots of Australia’s labour crisis and asks how the country can create a new generation of mining professionals.

Being located close to Asia’s emerging economic powerhouses has been a blessing for Australia’s mining industry. As increasingly confident economies like China and India look abroad for raw materials to feed an unprecedented number of construction and infrastructure projects, Australia’s immense mineral resources are exceedingly well placed to meet the demand.

The Australian mining sector’s strategic position is reflected in the number of projects and the amount of investment springing up in the country.

The Australian reported in early 2010 that while no mining project valued at more than A$10 billion came online in the first decade of the 21st century, six of these mega-projects are in development today, with a total value of more than A$150 billion.

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Australia experiences huge wave of [mining] expansion – by Matthew Fisher (National Post – February 10, 2012)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

“Unhindered by the foreign funded environmental coalition
that is attempting to destroy a large part of Canada’s
economic future by preventing pipelines linked to Alberta’s
oil sands, the terminals at Darwin will collect gas
harvested from the Timor Sea and shipped via a 890-
kilometre underwater pipeline.”(Matthew Fisher-Nationa Post)

DARWIN, AUSTRALIA – Exports of iron ore, gold, bauxite and liquefied natural gas to Asia are fuelling a phenomenal wave of economic expansion for Australia.

Keeping accurate tabs on the number of mega-projects is as difficult as it is to figure out the exact size of its economy because it is expanding so quickly.

The iron ore industry is expected to increase exports five-fold by the end of the decade. Figures for the growth in gas exports are projected to be much bigger. The high price of gold has also been a boon.

While most of the West frets about tomorrow, at least $300 billion will be spent soon on mills, drilling rigs, pipelines, heavy machinery, port dredging, marine supply bases and railways for projects that have been approved for Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

The marine collection terminal that is the final link in one of the larger developments which got the green light last month – the $37-billion Ichthys natural gas field – will be built near Darwin Harbour.

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Australia-China relationship a lesson for Ottawa [about resources] – by Matthew Fisher (National Post – February 7, 2012)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Canadians are about to discover that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has caught China fever. The Prime Minister arrives Tuesday in Beijing to shout that Canada is open for business.

Australia caught China fever some years ago and because of it the Land Down Under has been creating a staggering amount of wealth out of one of the greatest resource booms of all time.

To little fanfare elsewhere, Australia’s trade to China has tripled over the past five years to more than $60-billion a year.

When imports are included, trade between the countries is $80-billion a year, compared with a relatively piddling $30-billion a year of trade between Canada and China.

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Miners look to a future of automated operations – by Brenda Bouw (Globe and Mail – February 6, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Most mines are already desolate, vast landscapes filled with the hum of haul trucks and only a few humans. But in years to come they will be even more deserted, as more companies find ways to run their operations from control centres thousands of kilometres away.

The industry’s ongoing efforts to increase automation are expected eventually to improve safety, increase production and lower maintenance costs. Remote operations could also ease labour shortages by moving hard-to-fill jobs in the middle of nowhere to more desirable urban centres.

So far the technology is only being tested by a few big-name mining companies, and it’s too soon to tell just how much money it will save, particularly when expenditures are a closely guarded secret.

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Autonomous and Remote Operation Technologies in the [Australian] Mining Industry: Benefits and Costs – by Brian S. Fisher and Sabine Schnittger (BAEconomics – February 2012)

BAEconomics has extensive experience across the energy, minerals, infrastructure, agriculture and natural resources sectors.BAEconomics’ background is broad-based having extensive experience in consulting to mining and energy companies, industry associations, agribusinesses, food retailers, utilities and electricity generators, the manufacturing sector, the World Bank, United Nations bodies and Australian Federal and State government agencies. They have served on government committees and boards in Australia and internationally. http://www.baeconomics.com.au/
 
For the full report, click here: http://www.baeconomics.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Mining-innovation-5Feb12.pdf

Executive summary of Autonomous and Remote Operation Technologies in the [Australian] Mining Industry
 
Over the past decade, Australia has benefited greatly from its natural resource endowments. The sustained mining boom has contributed significantly to economic growth, investment, employment, as well as taxation and royalty payments to governments, and continues to do so. While some parts of the manufacturing sector have suffered from the appreciation of the Australian dollar, Australia’s services sector has played a key role in supporting the growth of the mining sector and has profited accordingly.

 On recent Reserve Bank of Australia estimates, around half of the cost of new mining investment was spent locally on labour and other inputs. In addition, Australian residents received more than half of the earnings from the mining sector. Moreover, while mining operations are concentrated in the resource-rich states, the distribution of mining receipts has been dispersed across the country and has played a key role in keeping unemployment rates low in all states since the onset of the resources boom.

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Direct support to those industries with a future [Australian mining] – by Henry Ergas (The Australian – February 06, 2012)

This opinion piece came from: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/

A MAJOR report released today by Rio Tinto shows just how foolish ACTU president Ged Kearney is to dismiss mining as merely “digging things out of the ground”.

And just how wrong-headed the Gillard government is to focus on locking resources into the industries of the past rather than freeing them for those of the future.

The report, by my former colleagues Brian Fisher, long-time head of the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, and Sabine Schnittger examines the technological revolution in mining.

The report’s findings (available at www.baeconomics.com.au) are striking: automation is comprehensively transforming mining. Within a decade, that transformation will lead to a “mine of the future” in which myriad robotic devices, controlled from vast distances, undertake functions ranging from tunnelling to blasting, sorting and transporting ores.

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How Glencore and Xstrata nailed the $76bn deal – by Danny Fortson (The Australian – February 6, 2012)

This article is from: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/

TUCKED in a corner of the Google bar at Davos, Ivan Glasenberg was in cracking form. Dark and intense, with his hair slicked back, the chief executive of Glencore sipped on a Diet Coke while chatting about mining and waving to acquaintances.

The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting is Glasenberg’s natural habitat. It is stuffed with billionaires — he himself is worth about pound stg. 5 billion ($7.3bn) — and world leaders, whom he courts, and who court him, thanks to his command of the most powerful commodities trader.

There was another, secret, reason for his good humour. Glasenberg was about to clinch a deal he had pursued for five years — a merger between Glencore and Xstrata, the FTSE 100 mining company that he helped create.

The $US82 billion ($76bn) merger, likely to be confirmed on Tuesday in London, is a personal coup for Glasenberg and Mick Davis, his counterpart at Xstrata. It also has profound ramifications for the world economy.

The marriage will unite Glencore’s army of razor-sharp traders — the Goldman Sachs of zinc, copper, iron ore, coal and oil — with Xstrata’s globe-spanning portfolio of mines, stretching from the Australian outback to South Africa and the Peruvian Andes.

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[Mining prostitution] ‘Coal girls’ hit paydirt at Queensland’s booming mining towns – by Kathleen Donaghey, Daryl Passmore and Jackie Sinnerton (Brisbane Courier Mail – November 6, 2011)

This article is from: http://www.couriermail.com.au/ [Brisbane, Australia]

THEY are the coal girls happy hookers striking it rich in booming mining towns across the state.

Fly-in, fly-out “working girls” travelling from as far away as New Zealand to the resource-rich regions of Queensland and Western Australia are making as much money in one or two days as mine labourers earn in a week.

But the booming unregulated sex industry is ringing alarm bells, with fears for the women’s safety and concerns over rising rates of sexually transmitted diseases.

The rich pickings up to $2000 a day are attracting scores of women to communities bursting with cashed-up men deprived of female company for weeks.

The women stay for a few days, or weeks, in hotels, motels or caravan parks before flying home or moving on to the next mining town in a circuit.

Researchers studying the impacts of the growth in fly-in, fly-out or drive-in, drive-out practices have even photographed a stretch limosine used by a prostitute as a mobile workplace in pub carparks.

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Darwin base shows shift in U.S. priorities – by Matthew Fisher (National Post – February 3, 2012)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

DARWIN, AUSTRALIA  At first glance there was no connection between U.S. President Barack Obama’s announcement in November the U.S. was establishing a permanent base for 2,500 Marines near Darwin and U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s revelation late Wednesday U.S. combat forces expect to quit Afghanistan early.

But there is. The announcements underscore how quickly U.S. global military priorities are shifting to the Pacific, where Beijing’s ambitions have become a white-hot issue.

The U.S. military focus is now on Asia, where a new strategic order is being established with the U.S. and Australia working closely together. Canberra’s strategic concerns were highlighted in the 2009 White Paper on defence, which concluded China was a potential direct threat and the country must have “defence in depth.”

The Sydney-based Lowy Institute for International Policy said more or less the same thing last year.

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Red centre of attention [Australian mining movie] – by Michael Bodey (The Australian – July 30, 2011)

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/

THE common expression of civic pride captured in bronze, stone or metal and given pride of place in a town’s centre is the likeness of an explorer, a leader or an athlete of distinction.

In Dampier, on Australia’s northwest shoulder, locals erected a statue in honour of a folk hero who helped galvanise the town as the area emerged as a mining hub in the 1970s. It just happened that leader was a dog: a wandering and faithful kelpie dubbed Red Dog.

Tales of Red Dog’s travels as far south as Perth and far north as Broome, his loyal companionship of many locals and his fearsome farts were such legend the dog became a defining figure for the burgeoning mining region, a figure representing the toughness and gypsy nature of the area’s growing band of employees.

So much so, Australian authors Nancy Gillespie and Beverly Duckett wrote books about the Pilbara wanderer before the English author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres, wrote his own semi-fictionalised and ultimately bestselling book about the kelpie’s adventures.

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The $200,000-a-Year [Australian] Mine Worker – by John W. Miller (Wall Street Journal – November 16, 2011)

http://online.wsj.com/home-page

Resources Boom Fuels Demand for Underground Labor, Spurs Skyrocketing Pay; a $1,200 Chihuahua.

MANDURAH, Australia — One of the fastest-growing costs in the global mining industry are workers like James Dinnison: the 25-year-old high-school dropout from Western Australia makes $200,000 a year running drills in underground mines to extract gold and other minerals.

The heavily tattooed Mr. Dinnison, who started in the mines seven years ago earning $100,000, owns a sky-blue 2009 Chevy Ute, which cost $55,000 before a $16,000 engine enhancement, and a $44,000 custom motorcycle. The price tag on his chihuahua, Dexter, which yaps at his feet: $1,200.

A precious commodity himself, Mr. Dinnison belongs to a class of nouveau riche rising in remote and mineral-rich parts of the world, such as Western Australia state, where mining companies are investing heavily to develop and expand iron-ore mines. Demand for those willing to work 12-hour days in sometimes dangerous conditions, while living for weeks in dusty small towns, is huge.

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