Sapphires attract big companies

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33083, 25 November 1972, Page 11

Sapphires attract big companies

Sapphires have become big business in two country towns in the northern part of the Australian state of New South Wales. The days of the fossicker and the family mining group are dwindling as big companies bring heavy plant and equipment into the area.

Major mining operations, some with capital expenditure of more than sAustsoo,ooo, are gouging the blue gem from alluvial deposits around the towns of Invereil and Glen Innes in the New England area of northern New South Wales. Sapphire production is increasing rapidly. The value of sapphires mined rose from sAusts26,ooo in 1968 to sAustl,4oo,ooo in 1969 and almost sAust3,ooo,ooo in 1970 and is still increasing, making Australia the world’s biggest sapphire producer. The existence of the fields has been known since 1854 and they have been mined since 1919 but it was not until 1968 and 1969 that the boom started. In those years some significant finds, increasing demand, better prices and improved marketing made sapphire mining a magnet for bigger mining companies. Today the individual miner with his shovel and bucket is being replaced by mechanical shovels, bulldozers and, on one lease, the biggest sapphire-mining plant in the world. Towns benefit The boom has helped Invereil and Glen Innes to weather a rural recession which affected many country areas in 1970 and 1971. At the same time it has endangered another source of town revenue: tourists who come to the towns to fossick for sapphires beside creek beds. The mining company leases are closed to outsiders and the municipal councils in Invereil and Glen Innes report that there are fewer and fewer places for the fossickers to go. Inverell’s town clerk, Mr R. A. Partridge, said the council hoped, with the help of the state government, to establish tourist fossicking areas which would be open to anyone. Sapphires are found in alluvial deposits in fairly well defined areas along creeks. The stones range from colourless through pale to very dark blue and some are blue-green, blue-yellow and occasionally green or yellow. Sapphires up to 40

carats have been found and a large proportion of marketable gems are more than one carat. Mining, whether small or large, follows the same general pattern. Loads of alluvial gravel are put through revolving perforated barrels (trommels) with large quantities of water, separating the larger rocks and valueless,materials. The “refined” slurry is then pumped over sluice boxes and on to a pulsator, which causes the heavier materials, including sapphires, to sink to the bottom. The pulsation process is repeated until only the heaviest material remains and the gems are then extracted by hand. World’s biggest The plant used ranges in size according to the size of the operation but one company, Dominion Mining, has installed the biggest sapphire mining plant in the world near the banks of Swanbrook Creek, near Invereil. “We’ve spent more than sAustsoo,ooo on machinery in the last few months,” the managing director, Mr Russell Hill, said. He said Dominion’s plan was to operate on a large scale to cut the cost of each unit of gravel and soil processed. Its field was not as rich as some but it believed that large-scale operation would return as much as smaller,

less efficient operations on richer fields. Dominion plans to employ up to 40 men when its site is in full production. Another company, Jingellic Minerals, made a profit of about sAustloo,ooo in 1971 with a smaller operation. Jingellic's chairman of directors, Mr Bruce Hyman emphasised that the cost per unit of material processed was the key to profit. Jingellic has one mine on the banks of Frazer’s Creek in the Invereil area and is prospecting a proposed mining lease in the Swanbrook Creek area. Today’s prospector is a mechanical shovel. To test its proposed lease Jingellic is cutting a trench with the shovel diagonally across the likely field and putting the material through its Frazer’s Creek plant to test yield. Used in jewellery Mr Hyman said that in a normal week’s operation on Frazer’s Creek Jingellic produced 1100 grams of saleable sapphire, worth up to sAustlso per 28.35 grams, and the company hoped the Swanbrook Creek lease would be even richer. Many of the companies sort and grade their stones in Invereil or Glen Innes and to those towns go the buyers, from South-East Asia and Europe. Most of the stones are cut overseas and used in jewellery. While the big companies are beginning to dominate the industry, efficient small producers are still able to make healthy profits from their mines. Some family groups on richer fields are prospering, although they are usually tight-lipped about just what they are producing. They are quick to point out that a small operation on a rich field might produce more revenue than a very much larger operation on a relatively poorer field. The New England field is not Australia’s only sapphireproducing area. Another field, in the Anakie-Rubyvale area of Queensland, about 500 kilometres west of Rockhampton, produces significant quantities of sapphire. But because Queensland state mining laws restrict lease sizes, the area has not been as attractive to big companies as the New England fields.—Australian News and Information Bureau.