Page 30 - Introduction to Mineral Exploration

1: ORE, MINERAL ECONOMICS, AND MINERAL EXPLORATION 13

US$ billion 1.5.1 Location
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Geographical factors may determine whether
Alcoa
BHP Billiton or not an orebody is economically viable. In a
Rio Tinto remote location there may be no electric power
Anglo American supply or water supply, roads, railways, houses,
Norsk Hydro
Alcan schools, hospitals, etc. All or some of these
CVRD infrastructural elements will have to be built,
Anglo American Platinum the cost of transporting the mine product to its
Barrick Gold markets may be very high, and wages will have
Newmont Mining
WMC to be high to attract skilled workers.
Placer Dome
Anglo Gold
Pechiney 1.5.2 Sustainable development
Potash Corp
Homestake Mining New mines bring prosperity to the areas in
Norilsk Nickel
Impala Platinum which they are established but they are bound
Franco Nevada Mining to have an environmental and social impact.
Inco When production started at the Neves-Corvo
Noranda
Lonmin copper mine in southern Portugal in 1989,
Phelps Dodge it required a total labor force of about 1090.
Gold Fields Generally, one mine job creates about three
Mitsubishi Materials indirect jobs in the community, in service
Sumitomo Metal Mining
Falconbridge and construction industries, so the impact is
Normandy Mining clearly considerable. Such impacts have led to
Freeport-McMoRan Cu and Au conflicts over land use and opposition to the
Imerys
Mitsui Mining and Smelting exploitation of mineral deposits by environ-
Buenaventura mentalists, particularly in the more populous
Cameco of the developed countries. The resolution of
Antofagasta Holdings such conflicts may involve the payment of
TeckCominco
Gencor compensation and planning for high closure
Dowa Mining costs, or even the abandonment of projects.
Outokumpu Oy A Select Committee (1982) stated “. . . whilst
Coal Allied
Goldcorp political risk has been cited as a barrier to
investment in some countries, environmental
FIG. 1.9 Capitalization of major mining companies risk is as much of a barrier, if not a greater in
– a snapshot on 28 September 2001. Since then others.” Opposition by environmentalists to
Homestake and Barrick Gold have merged as have exploration and mining was partially respons-
Newmont, Franco Nevada, and Normandy. (From ible for the abandonment of a major copper
MMSD 2002.) mining project in the Snowdonia National
Park of Wales as early as 1973. Woodall (1992)
and giving the industry a bad name (e.g. Bre-X, has remarked that explorationists must not
see section 5.4). only prove their projects to be economically
viable but they must also make them socially
and therefore politically acceptable. A major
1.5 SOME FACTORS GOVERNING THE CHOICE attempt to understand the problem, and to sug-
OF EXPLORATION AREAS gest solutions, has been made by the Mining,
Minerals and Sustainable Development project
In Chapter 11, consideration is given in some sponsored by most major mining companies
detail to how mineralisation is converted into (MMSD 2002). From this it is clear that the con-
an ore reserve and developed into a mine. A cerns of local inhabitants must be addressed
brief introduction to some of these aspects is from an early stage if mine development is to
given here. be successful (discussed further in section 4.3).