I was recently interviewed by Australian Mining magazine about the upcoming Copper To The World Conference in Adelaide on June 18.
I’ve linked the article below, but I just wanted to make some main points about this important industry get together.
First it makes a lot of sense to stage the conference in South Australia. It has 65% of Australia’s known copper reserves and annual production is around 270,000 tonnes.
Second the SA Government is very proactive. Its set a long-sighted growth plan with an ambitious target of one million tonnes a year by 2030.
South Australian copper exports today are worth $A2 billion to the state economy. If production reaches that one-million tonne mark, that’s $A9.5 billion in today’s dollars. The impact on South Australia is very, very significant.
The third copper conference comes as OZ Minerals’ Carrapateena project is about to begin operating and is also actively exploring. BHP says production at Olympic Dam is increasing to over 200,000 tonnes and drilling commencing at Oak Dam, 65 km southeast of Olympic Dam, to define the extent of mineralisation.
This conference is sharing ideas to enable companies involved to improve their sustainability footprint, to run safer mines for workers, and to capitalise on data, robotics, artificial intelligence to operate at lower cost – and, for local mining companies and suppliers, to contribute to that growth.
All the trends we explored in our copper technology roadmap in fact.
I’ll be running an innovation session at the Conference with some of our member companies talking about what they’re doing in the space.
I hope to see you there too.
Full article: https://www.australianmining.com.au/features/road-mapping-demonstrates-value-in-copper-investment/