Critical minerals a second century opportunity for Isa Carpentaria Minerals Province

Partner sponsored editorial Mount Isa has turned 100 having cemented its place in mining history. Even so, never-before has so much been expected from the region as now. Mount Isa Mines was voted the state’s most important business in the Queensland 150-year celebrations in 2009 marking the separation of the colony of Queensland from New South Wales. Capricorn Copper plant north of Cloncurry. For more than a century it has been a centre of manufacturing, innovation and wealth generation. When copper, lead and zinc were needed in the second world war, Mount Isa Mines rose to the occasion. It’s been there in boom and bust always producing, always contributing. It set world standards in production, smelting and refining while the state enjoyed the fat of the land. The Isa Carpentaria Minerals Province is now being looked at in its capacity to meet growing world demand for critical minerals. (Click to register) Among many others, the questions are these: How big are our copper reserves; can cobalt be processed economically; where is the political tolerance for processing rare earth minerals that include radioactive minerals like uranium and thorium? Cobalt ore This is where the North West MPX mining conference and exhibition comes into play. Geological Survey of Queensland director of minerals science Helen Degeling, is Master of Ceremonies for the event over May 9-11. It would take the best of both our mining traditions and technology to meet what the potential the critical minerals boom has to offer, Dr Degeling said. “I think everybody appreciates we can't electrify and decarbonize without copper. So yes, that's always going to be important,” she said. “There is also a whole suite of other elements and other metals that we have in the northwest minerals province, that up until the last couple of years, has really been ignored and unappreciated.” “We're only just starting to get a feel for how much cobalt there is associated with our giant copper deposits and the wealth of rare earth minerals that there are with the iron oxide copper-gold deposits such as Ernest Henry and Osborne. “It's really a huge opportunity for the region and one that I'm hoping that we can showcase at MPX.” Vanadium pentoxide. There needed to be a change in thinking to accommodate the occurrence of some critical minerals as co-products with larger reserves of more traditional metals, Dr Degeling said. “We need to start looking at each deposit as not just a source of one metal, but as a source of a range of metals that are going to be important,” she said. “Holistically, what are the full sum of the products from a mining activity? There might be copper, cobalt, some rare earths and maybe a few others. “And then there is the remaining non-metalliferous waste, which could be used in construction materials or other industrial applications. “We need to ask ourselves, as an industry, what does full efficiency look like? How can we actually make use of every single bit of the dirt that we dig up?” Click here to register for the North West MPX mining conference and exhibition in Mount Isa, May 9-11.

Critical minerals a second century opportunity for Isa Carpentaria Minerals Province

Industry Queensland

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