Tony Abbott knows that Olympic Dam will not provide new jobs
South Australia had already learned the hard way not to rely on Olympic Dam
Mr Abbott’s recent comments about the project prompted the state government to contact the company again, but it responded by saying its plans had not changed.
BHP Billiton put the $30 billion expansion, which would have created the world’s largest open-cut mine, on hold late last year, declaring it unviable
Olympic Dam no SA panacea: business leaders FINANCIAL REVIEW, 24 DEC 2013 JOANNA MATHER It would be a mistake to view expansion of BHP’s Olympic Dam mine as the panacea to South Australia’s economic woes, business leaders contributing to a post-Holden jobs and growth plan have warned.
Maurice Crotti, the managing director of iconic SA business San Remo, said the state needed to seize opportunities in a range of areas, including food manufacturing. Continue reading
Tony Abbott’s pretend revival of Olympic Dam uranium expansion plan
Tony Abbott’s push for Olympic Dam revival SID MAHER AND DENNIS SHANAHAN THE AUSTRALIAN DECEMBER 24, 2013 THE Abbott government has turned its sights on reigniting BHP Billiton’s giant Olympic Dam expansion as it seeks to find an economic antidote to Holden’s decision to cease carmarking in Australia from 2017. Federal ministers have held talks with BHP Billiton about ways to assist in the expansion of the South Australian uranium and copper project, including Research and development aid, approval processes and political stability in decision-making. …. (subscribers only) http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/tony-abbotts-push-for-olympic-dam-revival/story-fn59niix-1226789188416#
Toro Energy snatches at a financial straw for Wiluna uranium mine plan
still a long way off from the $260 million they need to start the project and $260 million they need in upfront bonds for mine closure.
Toro secures $10m in funding. Yahoo News, 24 Dec 13, Toro Energy says it has secured $10 million in new funding from a South African fund manager via an equity subscription agreement.
RealFin Capital Partners will initially invest $5 million in three tranches with the option of 
another $5 million equity subscription before July 1 next year.
The first tranche of shares will be priced at 7.3 cents with the balance of tranches priced at a 10 per cent discount to the prevailing trading price of Toro at the time.Toro managing director Dr Vanessa Guthrie said the subscription agreement provided further funding certainty for Toro as it looked towards a busy 2014 work program……http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/business/a/20468131/toro-secures-10m-in-funding/
Toro Energy bribing Aborigines into agreements on uranium mining?
“These people that Toro are talking to are driving around Toyotas that they did not have before. About 11 Toyotas just appeared”
Allegation of Toyotas for uranium mining http://thestringer.com.au/allegation-of-toyotas-for-uranium-mining/#.Uriap9JDt9X by The Stringer December 17th, 2013 A Toro Energy meeting took place today in Perth with the Wiluna Native Title signatories in light of Toro’s focus to culminate plans to proceed with Western Australia’s first uranium mine. Concerned Wiluna Elder Glen Cooke has long opposed the project and said he was excluded from discussions with Toro. Mr Cooke said he is concerned of potential risk exposures to his people and to his people’s Country.
“Our Country, our rivers, our creeks will be poisoned. It is guaranteed there will be incidents, accidents, leaks, spills. Look at what has occurred at Ranger (uranium mine in the Northern Territory), with more than 200 incidents, and at Olympic Dam (in South Australia) drying up Country (with its demand on water). When we hurt nature, we are actually hurting ourselves, if we fight with nature we are fighting with ourselves,” said Mr Cooke.
Mr Cooke previously entered the Toro AGM shareholders meeting by proxy on the 28th of November to express his concerns that the company had failed to communicate a number of vital issues with Wiluna residents.
“They make it sound good, they don’t say the dangers and say uranium is good stuff and will cause no harm to anything”, said Mr Cooke Continue reading
Australia’s uranium industry on its last legs?
Is time up for Australia’s uranium industry? ABC , DAVE SWEENEY , 18 Dec 13, Times are tough for Australia’s yellow-cake industry. It is best to put the whole thing out of its misery? “………The Australian uranium industry has long been a source of trouble. Now it is increasingly in trouble. The commodity price has collapsed, projects across the country have been stalled, deferred or scrapped and the recent Kakadu spill has again raised community attention and concern.
Business as usual in a most unusual business is not an option and there is an urgent need for an independent review. For those who make judgements on the basis of evidence rather than enthusiasm the alarm bells have been ringing loud for a number of years. Continue reading
Mirarr welcome role on Ranger task force
The Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation (GAC) has welcomed the formation of a task force to investigate the recent tank collapse at Ranger uranium mine. Federal Industry Minister Ian MacFarlane and Northern Territory Mines Minister Willem Westra Van Holthe announced the investigation today noting that a representative of the Mirarr Traditional Owners of the mine site will be invited to join.
GAC Chief Executive Officer Justin O’Brien said “We welcome the Government’s proactive closure of operations at Ranger and believe that mining should remain suspended until the completion of this investigation and the subsequent implementation of all recommendations.”
The investigation has been established to:
i) identify the immediate cause of the incident;
ii) examine the integrity of broader processing operations;
iii) identify any gaps in operating procedures or maintenance practices;
iv) undertake a comprehensive examination of corporate governance arrangements; and,
v) provide recommendations to the Commonwealth Minister for Industry and the Northern Territory Minister for Mines and Energy.
Mr O’Brien continued: “This inquiry must be given full access to ensure the condition of infrastructure and the rigour of procedures at this aging mine are fully scrutinised. We look forward to assisting with the appointment of an independent investigator.”
“We are hopeful that this process will set a strong precedent for government listening to and including aboriginal landholders in decisions about the management of their land” Justin O’Brien concluded.
Mirarr safety fears remain despite Ranger visit
Traditional owners in Kakadu National Park still fear for their safety and the health of their country after a technical team visited the Ranger Uranium mine today, following a series of pollution spills and safety breaches.
The Mirarr Traditional Owners – who do not feel safe to enter the mine area following Saturday’s tank collapse – sent a technical officer from the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation (GAC) to visit the site on their behalf this morning.
GAC acting Chief Executive Officer David Vadiveloo said “ERA is telling the public that the area is safe but our officer reports that they are still conducting radiation testing in the area and there is still toxic slurry lying exposed, outside the containment area.”
“The Mirarr are worried sick about the safety of people, the land and the future of this World Heritage park – meanwhile ERA is worrying about getting roads cleared and getting this aging and incident-riddled mine-site, back to processing without an independent assessment being done” Vadiveloo said.
“There has been no independent testing so we are all left relying on the mining company’s testing to confirm the area is safe. We want a presence on the taskforce and an independent audit of plant and facility” said Vadiveloo.
A taskforce involving government regulators, departments and the miner has been appointed to investigate the recent radiological accidents but GAC was not invited to participate.
GAC has written to the Federal Minister for Industry, Ian MacFarlane welcoming the current halt to processing at Ranger and to request a seat on the taskforce.
Mirarr Senior Traditional Owner Yvonne Margarula will make a statement in coming days.
Shock of Ranger radiation spill in “sickness country”
Kakadu uranium leak: ‘I’ve never seen anything like it’ SMH,December 14, 2013 Tim Elliott To the Jawoyn people, of southern Kakadu, it’s known as buladjang, or ”sickness country”, pockets of land not fit for regular habitation.
It was here, they believed, that the creation ancestor Bula ended his travels and left his spirit underground. Only recently have scientists found a correlation between mineral deposits such as uranium and the location of major Bula sites.
Ranger uranium mine, north of the Jawoyn, unleashed its own kind of sickness last Saturday when a leach tank burst, spilling 1 million litres of highly acidic uranium slurry that engulfed the mine and breached containment lines. The mine’s operator, Energy Resources Australia, said no one was hurt, and that the spill had no effect on the World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park, which surrounds the site.
But photos obtained by Fairfax Media for the first time show the extent of the damage. ”I’ve never seen anything like it,” says Melanie Impey, environmental officer for the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation, which represents the local Mirarr people. ”The tank was just a mangled mass of metal.”…..
Ranger has experienced more than 200 spills, leaks and breaches since opening in 1979. In 2002, ERA detected high uranium levels downstream from Ranger but failed to inform the traditional owners for five weeks. In 2004, 28 Ranger workers were found to have drank and showered in water containing 400 times the legal limit of uranium. Later, an excavator covered in radioactive mud was taken to the town of Jabiru for cleaning, contaminating a mechanic and his children.
Ranger’s chief regulator is the Northern Territory government, which takes advice from the Supervising Scientists Division, a Commonwealth agency that oversees environmental standards within Kakadu. ERA says its record is good, pointing out the SSD has always given the mine a clean bill of health …. http://www.smh.com.au/national/kakadu-uranium-leak-ive-never-seen-anything-like-it-20131213-2zcy5.html#ixzz2nU8DGzF
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/kakadu-uraniu
Ranger uranium mine: greying, fraying and needing more review than its getting
13 Dec 13, ACF has called for a widening of the scope of the planned review into safety at Energy Resources of Australia’s Ranger uranium mine in Kakadu following last weekend’s equipment failure and spill of a million litres of highly acidic uranium slurry.
Today the federal and NT Mines Ministers have outlined the terms of reference for a joint investigation but many questions remain unclear, including:
· Details on the ‘independent expert’ who has the key role to ‘review the broader integrity of the processing plant’
- · How stakeholders including environmental NGO’s and trade unions will engage with this process and whether there will be a public hearing and submission process
- · Whether operations at Ranger mine will remain halted pending the outcome plant integrity assessment
- · How the adequacy of the remediation and clean up works and related OHS response will be assessed
- · The extent of dependence of company supplied – as opposed to independently obtained – data and monitoring results Continue reading
Government team investigating Ranger radioactive spill excludes Aboriginal owners
Ranger clean-up ignores traditional owners 9 News, December 12, 2013 Aboriginal traditional owners have been left off a taskforce convened by the government to investigate a massive leak of uranium and acid at the Ranger mine in Kakadu National Park.
At 1am on Saturday a leach tank with a capacity of about 1.5 million litres collapsed, spilling out a mixture of uranium, sulphuric acid, and mud at the mine site, which has operated for 30 years inside the boundaries of one of Australia’s largest protected areas.
The federal government suspended operations at the mine and has formed a taskforce with regulators and the mine operators to respond to the incident, but traditional owners have not been invited to participate, says David Vadiveloo, acting CEO of the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation (GAC), which advocates on the behalf of the Mirarr people.
He told AAP the lack of an invitation to play a role “goes to the heart of our calls for the desperate need for independent oversight of that mine”.
“The regulatory procedures are just as archaic as the mine,” he said……..
an on-site GAC representative says radiation testing is still being carried out, with a large volume of contaminated material sitting on the ground outside the contaminated area.
Mr Vadiveloo said he was “stunned” to see ERA reassuring the community before testing was complete.
“Through good fortune – clearly not good planning – it hasn’t rained here since the accident, but what would ERA have done had the skies opened up and a huge dump of rain come in?”
Traditional owners did not feel safe on their own land, he said………GAC is calling for a fully independent review of the leak, along with a full audit of operations at Ranger.http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/12/12/18/42/ranger-clean-up-ignores-traditional-owners
ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENDERS OFFICE NT to monitor Government response to Ranger radioactive spill
EDONT to watch regulator response with interest in wake of Ranger Uranium Mine incident. ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENDERS OFFICE NT, DECEMBER 11, 2013 “………What can the Commonwealth and Territory Government do to respond to the spill?
Clearly an incident of this nature demands a strong response from regulators of the mine. Currently the Office of the Supervising Scientist and the Northern Territory Government are investigating the spill.
Commonwealth –
Under the AEA the Commonwealth Minister has the power to impose an indefinite suspension of operations at Ranger if ERA refuses or fails to comply with or observe a condition or restriction provided in its Authority. It is unclear whether the Commonwealth Minister has given a direction under the AEA or whether he has directed ERA to cease operations pending investigation and ERA have voluntarily complied.
It is interesting to note that while ERA have stated that the spill was contained on site, Ranger Environmental Requirement 1.2 requires that:
the company must ensure that operations at Ranger do not result in environmental impacts within the Ranger Project Area which are not as low as reasonably achievable, during mining excavation, mineral processing, and subsequently during and after rehabilitation.
Additionally, Environmental Requirement 12 requires the use of Best Practicable Technology (BPT) at Ranger. While it is contemplated that equipment on site may be able to fulfill its serviceable life, in light of this weekends events ERA appears to be failing in its duty to adequately review and update its equipment in line with Environmental Requirement 12.
Given that preliminary reports have suggested that the tank was over 20 years old, EDO NT would suggest that a full scale review of the mines equipment to ensure that there are no further equipment failures at the mine and compliance with the BPT requirement of ERA’s Ranger Authority is achieved.
Under the Atomic Energy Act it is an offence for a person to fail to comply with a condition of their authorisation. The maximum penalty for this offence, in the case of a body corporate like ERA, is $10,000.
Northern Territory –
The Northern Territory Government’s powers to regulate Ranger arise from the provisions of the MMA, which as stated above provides for the General Authorisation for Ranger, the Schedule to which set out the way mining operations are undertaken and the requirements for environmental protection.
In the event that the NT Government believes ERA has contravened an environmental obligation under the MMA and caused environmental harm, it is able to commence proceedings under the MMA.
The MMA provides three tiers of offences, namely for conduct causing:
- serious environmental harm (level 1 and 2);
- material environmental harm (level 1 and 2); or
- Environmental nuisance.
The penalties for the various tiers (and levels) range from about $55,000 for a body corporate who causes environmental nuisance to over $2.75 million for a body corporate that causes serious environmental harm.
The way forward
The time for taking a strong legal stance against lack luster performance at Ranger would appear to have come. The Northern Territory Government must send a message to ERA, and other mine operators within the Territory, that the Territory community will accept nothing less than strict compliance with the laws put in place to protect the environment.
http://edont.org.au/edont-watch-regulator-response-interest-wake-ranger-uranium-incident/
BHP not keen to waste more money developing uneconomic Olympic Dam
Where Olympic Dam is concerned, it’s the outlook for the main commodity—uranium—rather than potential investors that it mostly dislikes.
BHP Warms to Partnerships, But Olympic Dam Remains in the Cold WSJ 10 Dec 13, BHP Billiton Ltd. wants to share the love to get its $10 billion Jansen potash project in Canada off the ground. But the world’s biggest mining company is being a determined single when it comes to another costly development: Australia’s Olympic Dam…….
BHP’s reluctance to seek a partner for an expanded Olympic Dam project in South Australia may surprise as it’s stuck on the back burner, squeezed by low commodity prices and high development costs estimated by analysts at around $30 billion. In August last year, BHP said it would look for a less costly design for the Olympic Dam mine, which had been expected to bring in billions in tax dollars and create thousands of jobs. Up to now, it hasn’t announced any new plans for the site.
At first glance, finding a competitor to share development costs and risks with BHP makes sense. If they also bring in new technology then so much the better.
The problem for BHP is that a partner might actually want to get the project moving, even at a much-reduced scale. That would test BHP’s desire to keep annual spending below $15 billion in future, down by a third from last year’s bill totaling $21.7 billion. With uranium prices continuing to hover near eight-year lows, and several countries debating nuclear power in their energy mix, BHP can avoid such tough decisions by keeping full control of the asset.
“We like partnerships,” Mr Mackenzie told U.S. investors. Where Olympic Dam is concerned, it’s the outlook for the main commodity—uranium—rather than potential investors that it mostly dislikes. http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2013/12/10/bhp-warms-to-partnerships-but-olympic-dam-remains-in-the-cold/
Tanks for Nothing: New radioactive disaster haunts Rio Tinto
Australian Greens spokesperson on Nuclear issues, Senator Scott Ludlam. 10 December 2013.
In a bizarre and troubling development, Rio Tinto’s Rossing Uranium Mine in Namibia has suffered a disastrous acid spill identical in nature to that which closed the company’s Ranger mine in Kakadu on the weekend.
Breaking reports in local media indicate that within three days of the Kakadu collapse, Rio’s Namibian operation suffered a catastrophic failure which put workers and the surrounding environment at risk.
“In addition to the toxic catastrophic at Ranger uranium mine – the latest in over 200 spills, leaks and licence breaches within the Kakadu National Park precinct – Rio is also dealing with “structural failure” of a leach tank at their processing plant in Namibia,” said Australian Greens Senator Scott Ludlam today.
“Rössing opened in 1976, Ranger in 1981 – both of these mines are ageing and failing.
“Rio is now on the world’s radioactive radar – both in Namibia where worker and environmental safety standards are much lower than at Ranger.
“But it’s not only engineering structural failure in leach tanks. This industry is tanking economically and it’s time to shut it down and clean up these toxic blots on the landscape before they do more damage.
“Australia is blessed with perfect conditions for renewable energy generation, particularly solar, which is clean, safe and doesn’t risk contamination of workers and the environment. The future is renewable not radioactive,” Senator Ludlam concluded.
For further information on the spill in Namibia: http://www.namibtimes.net/forum/topics/rossing-shuts-operations-after-ca…
Ranger uranium mine’s safety in question: closed following radioactive spill
NT uranium mine suspended after radioactive leak SMH, 10 Dec 13,The federal government has suspended operations at the Ranger uranium mine in the Northern Territory, after a major leak of acid and radioactive slurry at the weekend.
The mine’s operator, Energy Resources of Australia, insists there has been no environmental impact from the million-litre spill, but this view is contested by local indigenous people and environment groups…….
On Friday, workers detected a hole in leach tank one within the mine’s processing area, which has a capacity of about 1.5 million litres. The next day, the tank split, pouring out a slurry of mud, water, ore and sulphuric acid…….
The NT Environment Centre said it did not believe ERA when the company said there had been no environmental impacts.
”It’s clear there’s contaminated water from the burst tank on soil,” director Stuart Blanch said.
There have been more than 200 safety breaches and incidents over the past 30 years at the site, according to the centre, which says the slurry spill overflowed levee banks designed to contain it and got into the mine’s stormwater drain system.
The regional organiser of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, Bryan Wilkins, said that during the construction and installation of the leaking tank, in 1993 or 1994, the welding was not properly tested. ”I know it wasn’t – I was there,” he said.
An investigation to determine what caused the tank to give way was being commissioned, ERA chief executive Andrea Sutton said……. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/nt-uranium-mine-suspended-after-radioactive-leak-20131209-2z1un.html#ixzz2n5vZT1Pe
Energy Resources of Australia (ERA)’s share price tumbles after latest radioactive accident
Rio’s ERA Drops After Australia Uranium Mine Spill: Sydney Mover Bloomberg, By James Paton Dec 8, 2013 Rio Tinto Group’s Energy Resources of Australia Ltd. tumbled the most in almost two years in Sydney trading after an acid and ore spill at its Ranger uranium mine near world heritage-listed Kakadu National Park.
ERA (ERA), 68.4 percent owned by London-based Rio, dropped 13 percent to A$1.135, the most since Feb. 1, 2012, while the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index fell 0.8 percent…….http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-09/rio-s-era-drops-after-australia-uranium-mine-spill-sydney-mover.html
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