104th Sydney Mining Club Luncheon
SA Gazumps its Rivals with a Run of Discoveries
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Quiz question: What were Australia’s last two world-class discoveries? Umm, Ernest Henry and Century? No they were Prominent Hill and Jacinth. And for our money the next will be Rudy Gomez’ astonishing Carrapateena discovery currently being drilled by Teck Cominco. Another sizeable discovery by Iluka is on the cards in its astonishing new zircon province in the Eucla Basin.
With Oxiana’s Prominent Hill notching-up contained metal of 1.5 Mt Cu and 1.8Moz Au and the well-publicised open pit scale-up of Olympic Dam, a review of the tremendous upside of the ‘Olympic Dam Corridor’ of haemetite-hosted breccia deposits begs the question ‘How big can Carrapateena get?’ The Argonaut-Straits Resources potential IOCG mega-target at Torrens is soon to be cleared of land access issues prior to drilling and there are a number of other IOCG targets in the Corridor under review by other explorers. Adding energy to a strong hydrocarbon history in the Cooper Basin is uranium from an expanded OD and a wildfire of new uranium exploration hopefuls all banking on Mr Beazley’s plan to change of party policy. Hot dry rock energy is attracting serious investor attention and there’s more. For example, gold on the Gawler Craton is doing well and Mithrill is looking into a new nickel province in the far north.
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Other states might ask ‘Why so lucky?’ In the case of Carrapateena, half of the cost of Rudy Gomez’ discovery hole was paid for by the PACE dollar-for-dollar drilling subsidy. No other state has matched it. And with Treasurer Costello apparently walking away from the Flow-through Share Scheme which promised tax deductions to investors in exploration companies in the same way that investment vehicles in other business sectors carry certain tax benefits, it focuses attention on how well an in-tune State Government can do things to encourage the resource sector. Therefore it is our pleasure to showcase the dramatic story of SA – the mineral state on a major roll – with the Executive Director of PIRSA, Paul Heithersay presenting. Not to be missed!
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