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Drillin: Peter Stephan: Industry Update: May 2011

This is the first of a series of industry updates I will be blogging about. I’m planning to write about one industry update per month, and they will discuss some of the exciting projects and news in the mining and oil and gas industry here within Queensland and around Australia and the world! Hopefully I will be able to convey some of my passion for the resources sector, and you too will see just how interesting the resources sector is. My interest in the business side of the industry has really developed over the last year or so after receiving the QRC scholarship and obtaining vac work and I now enjoy keeping up with the latest resources business news. Keeping an ear out for the news is really beneficial for anyone interested in a career in the resources sector because firstly you will learn an enormous amount about the industry and how things work, but also it is highly advantageous when applying for jobs and attending networking events, and it helps develop commercial awareness which is important for technical professionals in the industry. There’s so much really cool stuff going on at the moment in the sector. Bankers and economists are calling it another mining boom and the resources sector is really driving the Australian economy at the moment due to the strong demand for our resources from the rapidly developing Asian economies, especially China and India. This is fuelling expansions by many companies – Here are some notable ones! Firstly one right here in Queensland... Australian oil and gas company Santos has a major stake in the US$16billion GLNG Project – a joint venture with some of the world’s leading oil and gas companies. The project will use an advanced technology which converts CSG (Coal Seam Gas) into LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas). CSG will be extracted in Queensland around Roma and piped over 420km to Curtis Island, in the Port of Gladstone, where the CSG will be converted into LNG. Bechtel has been awarded the FEED (Front End Engineering Design) contract for the LNG Trains (LNG processing plants). Construction of this project is set to start this year with MacMahon being awarded the subcontract for the initial civil works on Curtis Island. BHP Billiton has recently announced several expansions – planning to increase their production in their Australian energy coal (Hunter Valley), iron ore (Pilbara) and base metals businesses. The Olympic Dam mine located in South Australia near Roxby Downs produces copper, gold and uranium in their underground mine and is one of the biggest operations in the country. The expansion plan is based around mining an open-pit above previous underground workings, which is the same method as Xstrata Zinc’s Black Star Open Cut where I did vac work over the summer. The expansion also involves increasing the capacity of their processing facilities and their port infrastructure. Achieving an acceptable environmental impact has been a challenge for BHP with this project regarding a number of aspects such as their proposed desalination plant.

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