nuclear-news

Gloom in South Australia over uranium mining future

Kloppers’ bleak Olympic hopes by: Michael Owen, The Australian September 04,  A BLEAK outlook has been presented by BHP Billiton chief executive Marius Kloppers for an expanded Olympic Dam mine ever operating in South Australia.

Mr Kloppers yesterday held talks with Premier Jay Weatherill in Adelaide to explain why the miner’s board last month indefinitely shelved the $28.7 billion project. He emerged from the hour-long meeting to say there was no timeframe for the project and no guarantee it would ever go ahead.

This came more than a week after The Weekend Australian revealed that Mr Kloppers had warned the expansion might never happen because the project was now dependent on the uncertain development of cheaper “leaching” technology to expand the mine’s future production. He had said that unlike “optimistic” scientists, the miner was “insufficiently certain that an eventual project will happen”. Mr Kloppers reiterated that message yesterday after meeting with the Premier. “We have been working and expending a lot of money on trying to make this project a reality,” Mr Kloppers said…… ”I can’t give you any timeframe on how these things could progress.”

Asked if he could give a guarantee the mine would be redeveloped, he said: “No, I cannot.”

Mr Weatherill tried to maintain a positive message, but conceded the current model planned for the expansion “does not work”..  they are not able to advance a time when the technology will be proven, nor are they able to give us certainty about whether the technology will be capable of being proven, and therefore they will not be in a position to give us certainty about when the mine proceeds.”…

Mr Weatherill said that after his meeting yesterday, any future expansion was even further away than he had previously thought……

The opposition said all of the government’s tough-talking about BHP meeting its December deadline to go-ahead with the expansion and the project’s benefits for the state, had proven to be “bluff and bluster”. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/kloppers-bleak-olympic-hopes/story-fn59niix-1226464289847

September 4, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, business and costs | Leave a comment

Another big loss for Australian uranium miner Paladin

Uranium group Paladin’s loss widens, Business Report August 30 2012 Australian-listed Paladin Energy‚ a uranium producer with projects in Australia and two operating mines in Africa‚ delivered a net loss for the year to June 30 of US$172.8m‚ an increase of 110% from the previous year’s US$82.3m loss. This translates into a loss per share of US21.1 cents form a loss of US11.1 cents the previous year. No dividend was declared.

August 31, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, business and costs | Leave a comment

Uranium mining collapsing in Australia, as uranium market fails

He [BHP CEO Marius Kloppers] said demand for uranium had collapsed after the Fukushima nuclear incident last year

The Olympic Dam and Yeelirrie shocks from BHP came hot on the heels of the decision by Canada’s Cameco to go slow on a development of its Kintyre uranium project in WA’s Great Sandy Desert 

Barnett tells miner to sell asset to other developers BY: ANDREW BURRELL  The Australian August 27, 2012  BHP Billiton has abandoned its controversial Yeelirrie uranium project in Western Australia, with chief executive Marius Kloppers saying the deposit is too small for the mining giant’s portfolio at a time of collapsing global demand. Continue reading →

August 27, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, business and costs | Leave a comment

BHP ditches its monster uranium mine plan

At its peak, the mine was expected to consume more electricity than the city of Adelaide, and 100 Olympic swimming pools worth of fresh water every day.

Olympic Dam was too expensive. 

South Australia will be fine. Mining accounts for a relatively small share of South Australia’s overall economy, and only 1 per cent of its employment.

the carbon emissions from Olympic Dam would have dwarfed all the gains in emissions reductions that South Australia has made in renewable energy in recent years

The Olympic Dam Delay Has A Silver Lining New Matilda, By Ben Eltham 23 Aug 12,  Why did BHP Billiton halt the Olympic Dam mine? The project was just too expensive. The decision is good news for the South Australian environment, writes Ben Eltham

Picture a hole in the ground four kilometres long and one kilometre deep. Picture a manmade mountain of dirt next to it nearly as high — a mountain of dirt dug from the ground and heaped next to that hole, a new landmark on the South Australian horizon.

Picture a mega-project so large and so thirsty that it would have required a new baseload electricity generator to meet its power needs, and a new desalination plant hundreds of kilometres away on the coast to make the water it required.

Picture a mine so vast, it would have increased the world supply of Uranium by a third.

This was the vast edifice that was to be Olympic Dam — when finished, the largest mine in the world.  Continue reading →

August 23, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, business and costs | Leave a comment

Plan for world’s biggest uranium mine scrapped

The mine would have become the world’s biggest open cut copper and uranium mine at six kilometres long and one kilometre deep.

BHP cancels $30 billion Olympic Dam expansion near Roxby Downs in South Australian Outback  Business Writer Meredith Booth AdelaideNow August 22, 2012   BHP Billiton has shelved its $30 billion Olympic Dam expansion and will go back to the drawing board to find a cheaper alternative…. Continue reading →

August 22, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, business and costs | 1 Comment