Australia's mineral resources maintain world status

Geoscience Australia’s “Australia’s Identified Mineral Resources 2009” shows that Australia’s economic demonstrated resources for a number of mineral commodities increased during 2008.
Chief of Geoscience Australia’s Onshore Energy and Minerals Division, Dr James Johnson said the increase means that production was more than compensated for by the discovery of additional resources.
“However, the report notes that there have been very few world class discoveries in Australia in the past two decades and the inventory has been sustained largely through delineation of additional resources in known mineral fields,” Dr Johnson said.
The report estimates the resources life of various commodities including diamonds (about 10 years at current rates of production), manganese ore (20 years), gold (30 years), zinc (35 years) and lead (40 years). However, the world financial crisis highlighted the fact that a long resource life for a particular commodity is not a guarantee that such resources will continue to be exploited in Australia.
“Australian minerals projects are being increasingly ranked by multinational companies against investment returns from other projects worldwide, resulting in a number of recent mine closures in Australia,” he said.
“This means that, while Australia’s resource stocks are healthy overall, the country’s position as a premier mineral producer is dependent on continuing investment in exploration to locate high quality resources and to upgrade known deposits to make them competitive on the world market,” Dr Johnson said.
The report said that investment in exploration is essential to maintain Australia's continuing position as a premier producer, along with investment in beneficiation processes to improve metallurgical recoveries.

Highlights of the report
Australia's Economic Demonstrated Resources (EDR) for the following 18 mineral commodities increased during 2008 - black coal, copper, gold, iron ore, lead, lithium, manganese ore, molybdenum, nickel, niobium, rare earth oxides, silver, tantalum, tungsten, uranium, vanadium, zinc and zircon.
In the same period, EDR of nine commodities decreased - brown coal, cobalt, diamonds (gem and industrial), mineral sands (ilmenite and rutile), platinum group elements, shale oil and tin.
EDR for antimony, bauxite, cadmium, magnesite, and phosphate rock remained at levels similar to those reported in 2007.
World ranking: Australia's EDR of brown coal, mineral sands (rutile and zircon), nickel, silver, uranium, zinc and lead remain the world's largest, while antimony, bauxite, black coal, copper, gold, industrial diamond, iron ore, ilmenite, lithium, manganese ore, niobium, tantalum and vanadium all rank in the top six worldwide.
Recoverable EDR of black coal in 2008 increased 0.8 per cent to 39.2 gigatonnes (Gt) which represents 6 per cent of the world's recoverable black coal EDR and ranks Australia as having the world's sixth largest EDR. The Sydney Basin in New South Wales (NSW) contains 35 per cent of Australia's recoverable EDR and the Bowen Basin in Qld contains 34 per cent. Recoverable EDR of brown coal in 2008 was 37.2 Gt, slightly less than 2007 and represents about 25 per cent of the world's recoverable brown coal, the largest of any country. All of Australia's brown coal EDR is in Victoria (Vic).
At December 2008 the proven and probable (2P) reserves of coal bed methane in Australia were 16,179 Petajoules (PJ), an increase of 116 per cent over the 2P reserves at December 2007. Queensland has 15,302 PJ (or 94.6 per cent of the 2P reserves) with the remaining 877 PJ in NSW.
Australia's gold resources occur and are mined in all States and the Northern Territory (NT). Australia's EDR of gold rose by 7 per cent in 2008 to 6,255 tonnes, the second largest globally. Western Australia has the dominant share with 47 per cent of the national total EDR.
In 2008, EDR of iron ore increased by 18 per cent to 24 Gt which is about 15 per cent of world EDR, and the world's third largest. Western Australia has 98 per cent of Australia's EDR with about 86 per cent occurring in the Pilbara district.
Australia's EDR of nickel increased by 2.3 per cent to 26.4 million tonnes (Mt) in 2008, which is the world's largest EDR. Western Australia remains the largest holder of nickel resources with 90.4 per cent of total Australian EDR, comprising both sulphide and lateritic deposits. The combination of the global financial crisis and falling nickel prices led to a number of mine closures.

Australia's resources of major minerals and world figures as at 31 December 2008: http://www.ga.gov.au/minerals/exploration/resources_advice/Table1_AIMR09.jsp

Australia’s Identified Mineral Resources 2009 can be downloaded free from www.ga.gov.au and can be accessed along with other fundamental data on the minerals sector from the Atlas of Australia’s Mineral Resources, Mines and Processing Centres at www.australianminesatlas.gov.au