Australia's Identified Mineral Resources is an annual nation-wide assessment of Australia's ore reserves and mineral resources.

Legacy product - no abstract available

Legacy product - no abstract available

This publication is the sucessor to Oil and Gas Resources 1999 and continues as the definitive reference on exploration, development and production of Australia's petroleum resources. It covers exploration, reserves, undiscovered resources, development, production and supporting information and statistics. It includes a forecast of Australia's crude oil and condensate production from 2001 to 2015, and sustainability indicators for petroleum resources. Information on Australia's petroleum data availability is also included. A revised estimate of Australia's undiscovered resources is included. The Appendices describe wells drilled and seismic surveys carried out in 1999 and 2000. There is also a chronological listing of offshore and onshore oil and gas discoveries to 2000, listings of all petroleum platforms and pipelines, and a map showing all Australian petroleum exploration and development titles, with a key of title holders and interests as at March 2001. OGRA 2000 provides the background for much of the advice on petroleum resources given to the Australian government and is a key source for petroleum exploration, production and service companies, petroleum engineers and geologists, energy analysts, stockbrokers and share investors.

Energy drives the modern world and underpins our current way of life. The industrial age was fuelled by access to reliable high grade energy sources, such as coal and oil, which drove global economic expansion and modernisation. There is a strong correlation between energy consumption levels and GDP. Australia is a large consumer of energy (5.87 Tonnes of oil equivalent per person annually), ranking twentieth on total consumption, and 16th on a per-capita basis. Australia is well endowed with traditional energy resources, e.g., coal, gas, uranium, and is a large energy producer (8th in the world). Australia also benefits from energy exports. Energy, therefore, strongly contributes to the nation's wealth and living standards, but increasingly it is recognised that these are dependent on access to cheap energy. Environmental concerns and the for the need energy security will drive a switch to other more sustainable energy types, preferably from indigenous energy sources. Although the Australia continent is ideally situated to make use of many alternate energies, e.g., our hot and arid nature makes solar an ideal potential renewable energy source, such sources will not provide all of our needs and will not contribute to peak energy loads. Fortuitously, Australia is endowed with above average concentrations of the radioactive elements (K, U and Th) in many of our rocks. Australia has ~38% of the world's current uranium reserves. The energy generated by the naturally-occurring break down of radioactive elements is immense, and this energy can be captured either by fission of U (and Th?) in nuclear reactors, or by the use of geothermal energy. Combined, both sources have the ability to meet base and peak load power requirements, and the potential to underpin Australia's energy requirements well into the future.

Short article describing detection of interpreted unconformity between Coolbro Sandstone and Rudall Complex rocks near the Kintyre uranium deposit, Western Australia

Magmatic-related uranium resources are globally significant. Nevertheless, this class of uranium mineralisation is poorly represented among Australia's total known resources. This is despite the presence of numerous uranium-rich magmatic events distributed across a large part of the country, and across a vast span of geological time. To assess the potential for magmatic-related uranium mineral systems in Australia, three maps have been produced showing the uranium contents of Australian igneous rocks. Geological datasets incorporating both solid and surface geology, as well as geochemical data, have been compiled from a diverse range of open-file sources. This Record is intended to provide background information relating to these data sources and methodologies used in the production of the maps. The maps illustrate the large spatial extent of uranium-rich igneous rocks in Australia, with occurrences in all jurisdictions where uranium exploration is currently permitted. The maps also permit ready recognition of particularly enriched rocks on a pluton or wider scale. Identification of these areas has application to exploration for magmatic-related uranium systems, as well as certain basin-related uranium systems, where uranium-rich igneous rocks formed part of the metal source. Analysis of the compiled geochemical data reveal that high uranium content is most commonly associated with evidence of extensive fractional crystallisation. Fluorine contents, bulk rock composition, melt temperature, and temporal setting are also important. This preliminary interpretation demonstrates that an applied understanding of well-known igneous processes is able to account for the observed uranium content in uraniferous igneous rocks. Recommendations are given for future avenues of investigation into the prospectivity of Australian igneous rocks for magmatic-related uranium mineral systems, based on an understanding of the geochemical behaviour of uranium in igneous processes.

Australia holds the world's largest resources of uranium recoverable at low cost, principally in the uranium-rich Olympic Dam iron oxide Cu-Au (IOCG) deposit together with the Ranger and Jabiluka unconformity-related deposits and Yeelirrie surface-related deposit. Despite this impressive inventory, resources of several other styles of uranium deposits appear to be under-represented in Australia relative to geologically similar regions elsewhere in the world. In particular, Australia has no known giant uranium deposits hosted by Mesozoic or younger sedimentary basins, although recent discoveries in the Frome Embayment have significantly increased total resources of `sandstone' uranium in the region. Major deposits directly related to magmatic processes also appear to be under-represented, given the abundance of unusually uranium-rich igneous rocks in Australia. The Australian Government's Onshore Energy Security Program (OESP 2006-2011) is providing pre-competitive geoscientific data and new area selection concepts to assist in reducing exploration risk and to support an assessment of onshore energy and uranium potential. This report examines the key processes controlling where and how uranium mineralisation occurs in Australia and elsewhere. Based on this process understanding and on descriptions of well-documented systems, we develop generalised models of three distinct families of uranium mineral systems, including exploration criteria. The purpose of the report is to present a revised framework for a fresh assessment of Australia's uranium mineral potential. This systems-based approach, when combined with empirical data, provides a means of identifying previously unrecognised uranium provinces or districts. The report has three parts. First, the fundamental chemical controls on uranium transport and deposition in aqueous geological systems are reviewed. Second, a new scheme of classification of uranium deposits is proposed (see below). Third, each of three families of uranium mineral systems, plus hybrid systems, is described in terms of ore-forming processes, essential components of the mineral system, and mappable criteria. Exploration models for key systems are presented in figures and tables.

This map shows Australian operating mines, deposits where development has commenced or where a decision to mine has been announced, and selected mineral deposits. Closed mines or mines not currently operating are not shown. It illustrates broadly the geographic distribution of mines and deposits a the range of selected commodities mined.

A map showing the distribution of selected mines and mineral depsosits for a range of commodities. It also shows the distribution of petroleum resources in basic form. The map base is the georegions of Australia