Olympic Dam
will this be the biggest Australian of them all?
IT IS DIFFICULT TO OVERSTATE THE statement, which took five-years to complete
enormity of BHP Billiton’s proposed and cost $25 million, that once completed,
Olympic Dam mine expansion in South the Olympic Dam pit would be 4.1km long,
Australia’s far north. The world’s largest 3.5km wide and 1km deep.
mining company is considering a mammoth Notwithstanding, it may take BHP
conversion of the $1 trillion multi-mineral Billiton up to five years to remove some
operation to include open-pit mining, at 410mt of earth before ore can be recovered
a cost of about $15 billion, according to from the pit.
analysts’ projections. The group anticipates the overall
The plan is to dig a new open pit that expansion would take about 11 years and
would operate simultaneously with the be completed in five stages, with the first
existing underground mine and increase stage scheduled for completion in late 2013.
copper output fourfold, boost gold The existing smelter would be expanded
production eightfold and uranium by almost and a new concentrator and processing
fivefold, according to company forecasts. plant would be built, the company says.
The combined operations would produce The operation would use about 280
750,000 tonnes of copper, 19,000t of mega litres of water a day, of which 200
uranium oxide, 800,000 ounces of gold and mega litres would be pumped 320km
2.9 million ounces of silver. along a pipeline from a proposed coastal
Located 560 kilometres north of desalination plant in the Upper Spencer
Adelaide near Roxby Downs, Olympic Dam Gulf. A 270km electricity transmission line
holds the world’s fourth-largest copper and from Port Augusta to Olympic Dam is also
gold deposit and the largest known uranium being considered along with a new gas-fired
deposit. Completion of the expansion power station at the mine.
project would make the Olympic Dam The new complex would also require
mine the largest of its type in the world and a 105km rail line to connect Olympic
unlock the capacity to produce 35 per cent Dam to the national rail network, a new
of the world’s uranium. airport, additional port facilities in South
Underground production at the mine Australia and in the Northern Territory to
now accounts for 4500 tonnes per annum import supplies and export product, a new
(tpa), while proposed uranium tonnage accommodation village for workers and
under an expanded operation would add expansion of the Roxby Downs township
14,500tpa. BHP Billiton completed a pre- 14km south of the mine, where most of the
feasibility study for the proposed expansion mine’s workforce would continue to live.
in 2008 and released a draft environmental BHP Billiton’s most recent cost estimate
impact statement (EIS) in May 2009 to for the expansion was $6 billion but the cost
seek federal, South Australian and Northern of the expansion may now be as much as
Territory government approvals. $15 billion, according to estimates by Merrill
BHP Billiton says in the 4600-page Lynch and JPMorgan Chase.
➧
MINING & TECHNOLOGY AUSTRALIA 2010 17
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