AUSTRALIA—NORTH OF CAPRICORN

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29726, 20 January 1962, Page 8

AUSTRALIA—NORTH OF CAPRICORN

Tremendous Mining Potential

No. II [By JOHN LOU dli LIN. for the Australian Nows and Information Bureau]

JN mining, as in the beef cattle industry (discussed in an article last Saturday), the potential is tremendous; but much is being achieved at present North Queensland had a mining boom lasting from 1905 to 1918 but the industry went into decline after the then known deposits had cut out. In the 1920’s it was generally considered that prospects of finding significant new deposits in Northern Australia were not encouraging. This view proved to be over-cautious. Modern techniques, and in the case of uranium, modern needs, have led to the discovery and opening up of new deposits. Fresh discoveries of varying degrees of importance are being made as the search widens and as it penetrates more deeply below the surface. It is not gold today, but the basic mineral raw materials—lead, zinc, copper, bauxite and iron ore. Much of the ancient land surface of Australia consists of pre-Cambrian rock, in which a variety of minerals essential to an industrialised economy are found.

Specialised teams of geologists and geophysicists organised by the Federal Bureau of Mineral Resources have been the pace-setters in the hunt for minerals. They are equipped to spend months out in the desolate mineralbearing country of the North, sometimes following up leads given by airborne surveys which can indicate the possible presence of mineral bearing rocks. Several major mining companies. too. have their prospecting parties in the field. American. British and Australian oil companies have been prospecting or drilling for oil. encouraged by Federal Government subsidies and the steadfast belief of their technical men that somewhere, at some time, oil would be found in Australia in commercial quantities. This belief is now confirmed by the discovery of oil in the Moonie No. 1 well, about 200 miles west of Brisbane. In 1956 it was realised that the red cliffs along the foreshore at Weipa, on the west coast of Cape York Peninsula in far northern Queensland. were the edge of a bauxite field. Surveys have shown that economic grade bauxite extends over an area o'. 200 square miles, forming one of the greatest known deposits in the world. Estimates put the reserves of ore at perhaps up to 2.000 miUion tons. Consolidated Zinc Proprietary Ltd., in com. pany with Kaiser Aluminium and Chemical Corporation, have started to develop an integrated aluminium industry based on Weipa requiring the investment of about £l3O million in installations at Weipa, and a amelter in the South Island of New Zealand.

On the opposite side of the Gulf of Carpentaria another b;g bauxite deposit has been

discovered at Gove. Two companies. British and Australian, have taken prospecting leases. The latter company is looking into the prospects of setting up an alumina plant and has its eyes set on exporting to Japan.

Mount Isa mine. 600 miles inland from the North Queensland coast, has had an impressive revival of fortune after years of financial struggle. After the discovery of silver-lead ore in 1923 it was developed from the early 1930’s aas a lead-zine mine and w’as sustained in difficult times by the capital of the American Smelting and Refining Company (which holds 51 per cent, of the shares) and its Australian shareholders.

In 1955 came a development which transformed its prospects. A drilling programme disclosed the existence of a major copper ore body. Copper had been discovered in the area being mined by Mt. Isa Mines, Ltd., in 1930, and had been mined for a short time during World War 11, but the extent of the ore body had not been suspected. Development of these reserves has. in a few years, raised Mount Isa to a position where it promises to become one of the leading copper producers of the world. Australia has become an exporter of copper instead of being a net importer. Due mainly to expansion at Mount Isa. Australian copper production rose from 18,000 tons in 1951 to 109,000 tons in 1960

The company is pushing on with a £25 miUion expansion programme which will enable the mine by 1964-65 to feed ore (copper, lead and zinc) at the rate of 14,400 tons a day to the mill at Mount Isa and a greatly increased tonnage of blister

copper to the refinery opened by the company at Townsville, on the coast, in 1960. By that time the reconstructed 600-mile railway between Mount Isa and Townsville is expected to be nearing completion. The Federal Government is advancing up to £2O million of the estimated £29 to £3O million it will cost the Queensland State Government to rehabilitate the railway. Ibis acknowledges Mount Isa’s national importance as the largest individual earner of exroort income in Australia. It is yet another example of the selective approach to promoting development in the north.

Autralia’s largest uranium field, the Mary Kathleen, between Cloncurry and Mount Isa. is operating under a contract to supply 4500 short tons of uranium oxide to a gross value of between £4O million and £45 million to the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. The international mining group, Rio Tinto, holds the major interest in the operating company, Mary Kathleen Uranium, Ltd.

Islands Of Iron Ore

On the north-west coast of Australia, islands of iron ore in Yampi Sound are one of the two main sources of highgrade ore presently being exploited for the Australian steel industry—the other is in the Middleback Ranges of J South Australia. About 1,000,000 tons of ore . a year is being extracted on ' Cockatoo Island. It is shipped 3000 miles in 12,500 ton and 19,000 ton ore carriers , to the iron and steel plants of Broken Hill Proprietary Company, Ltd., at Newcastle and Port Kernbla, in New South Wales. On neighbouring Koolan Island, installations are being built to work deposits said to be in the region of 50 million tons Shipments of ore from Yampi Sound islands may reach 2.000.000 tons of ore a year when production is established at Koolan. There are iron ore deposits also at Mount Goldsworthy, farther south from Yampi, in the Roper Bar area of the Northern Territory and at Constance Range in northwestern Queensland; and recently a great new deposit has been discovered in the Pilbara district of north-west Western Australia. North of Capricorn there is only one outstanding example of successful largescale agriculture: the highly mechanised suear industry, which is confined to the Queensland coastal strip World market conditions rule out any attempt to reproduce this success in other parts of the North. Past efforts in the Northern Territory to establish cash crop settlements have been dogged by set-backs, and handicapped by lack of scientifically based knowledge of the environment. The president of the Australian Agricultural Scientific Society, Mr C. S. Christian, has said that land developed has lagged because the problems encountered have been unfamiliar to the European and because so much land, more easily developed, has been available in the temperate regions. The Administrator of the Northern Territory, Mr R. Nott, affirms that present thinking is that closer settlement on small mixed farms will be the basis of future develonments in the Territory. Farmers will combine cattle fattening with raising cash crops such as rice and peanuts. Individual rice farmers, operating on small holdings, have recently produced good results, in contrast with the reversals met by some bigscale operations.