Obscenity of BHP Billiton’s Control of Huge Water Resources in Olympic Damn Uranium Mine Deal

VIDEO Mine expansion draws more water from basin ABC News, Paul Klaric, October 14, 2011 Scientists are concerned that the the proposed Olympic Dam mine expansion will put a strain on Australia’s greatest underground water supply. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-14/mine-expansion-draws-more-water-from-basin/3572500

GREEN LIGHT FOR OLYMPIC DAM EXPANSION THE BLOGGER IS A BHP BILLITON SHAREHOLDER. On 13 May 2011 the company announced a proposal for six-fold expansion of Olympic Dam Mine in South Australia – to extract the most valuable single mineral deposit in the world. The mine will consume up to 42 million litres of water a day from the Great Artesian Basin for plus 40 years.
USE OF THE GREAT ARTESIAN BASIN BY THAT MINE IS THE ISSUE WHICH THIS BLOG ADDRESSES

On 10 October 2011 the South Australian (SA) Government granted approval for the BHP Billiton (BHP) Olympic Dam expansion. The Indenture Bill, signed on 12 October by representatives of BHP and the State Government, will now be submitted to vote in the SA Parliament. The SA government will not terminate or suspend the current licence which entitles BHP to take 42 million litres of water each day for Olympic Dam from the Great Artesian Basin (GAB) – but BHP will in the future pay for GAB water. This failure of the SA Government to protect the best interests of the GAB represents an enormously significant strategic win for BHP.

With the value of the Olympic Dam resource now standing at $1.4 trillion (an increase by a factor of 155 over the $9 billion acquisition price in 2005) free GAB water for the past 6 years has been an irrelevant bonus. But whilst future payments for GAB water will be marked with a miniscule book entry in the accounts of this massive mining operation, the concept of paying for GAB water will certainly be of concern to every single pastoralist, country town, and family that actually NEEDS GAB water.

But it is the strategic significance of the position in which these SA Government decisions have placed BHP that may have some of the most wide-ranging and long-term consequences in this potentially mineral-rich desert region of SA. The enormous amount of surplus water that BHP will own or control will be sufficient to support two mining operations of the size and scale of the current Olympic Dam mine. As railway lines were once of such commercial significance to BHP in the competitive iron-ore regions of NW Australia, in these parts of SA it has long been the fact that whoever controls the water controls the commerce. Perhaps this is not the first time in the history of flawed government decision-making that the seeds of an anti-competitive beast have been planted.

The true obscenity of what occurred in South Australia these last few days is that, by any measure, the best interests of the GAB have once again been trampled by a State government in the rush to accommodate the wishes of a miner.

http://www.savethebasin.com/

October 15, 2011 - Posted by Christina MacPherson | politics, reference, South Australia, uranium, water | South Australia, water

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