Challenges for extracting critical minerals in North Queensland
Small mining explorers explain inflation combined with lack of investment was not meeting the international demand for critical minerals.
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North Queensland copper explorers believes copper “has its time” and praises the area as a great place to invest in compared to other jurisdictions, but warns inflation and lack of investment is limiting their potential.
And the market was not funding the junior explorers searching for the next mineral deposits to be exported through the Port of Townsville, despite the international demand for the critical minerals to be used for renewable technologies.
While the price was consistent for the industry, sources in the North Queensland mining industry said inflationary pressures, investment, and price exchange also needed to be considered when developing the region further.
Renegade Exploration chairman Robert Kirtlan said “massive inflation” in drilling, airfares, and getting experienced workers onsite since the early days of the pandemic continued to have an impact.
The company is working on three sites within the Cloncurry and Mount Isa areas including the Mongoose Project, and is confident in the results that it will find which it will speak on at the MPX mining conference in Mount Isa this week.
But Mr Kirtlan hopes the copper price could increase by several thousand dollars more to encourage the smaller producers to keep searching for the next Ernest Henry or Mount Isa Mines deposits, and to increase feasibility of extracting smaller deposits.
“For the junior sector it’s still not easy,” Mr Kirtlan said.
“As you know, we’re at the mercy of the global changes, we’re right at the coal face of the global market.
“Copper has its time, it’s reasonably consistent, but the problem in the industry as I see it for producers, and we all hope to become a producer, has been the cost.”
“The copper price is $8000 USD, but you haven’t seen the price of inputs.”
The North West Minerals Province is said to have an untapped $740b in resources and Mr Kirtlan said there was genuine support from the Queensland Government to help unlock them.
However, the region was still under-explored because of the inaccessible “difficult country”, which for a long time had been dominated by major mining companies sitting on unused tenements.
It could also be difficult for explorers to find a result to focus on.
“It’s a bit scary really because there’s probably too much copper there, the result is you get a lot of duds,” he said.
“They’ve got to be economically viable, that’s the challenge for every exploration company.
“What you think is an ore body doesn’t hang together and doesn’t come out of the ground, but that’s why we do it.
“We live the dream of finding a Tier 1.”
True North Copper Limited chief operating officer Peter Brown said exploration was not being funded according to the province’s potential.
“The market dropped off in terms of funding for smaller exploration groups,” Mr Brown said when meeting Resources Minister Scott Stewart in Townsville last month.
“That’s not good because we need a lot of funding injection into exploration in North Queensland to really get the engineering going and back in the push for critical minerals.
“I’m hoping the market picks up this year.”
Former Mount Isa Mines boss Steve de Kruijff said there were numerous prospects for critical minerals in the province, and that these would be addressed at the MPX conference he would MC at this week.
“It’s just keeping the level of interest as high as possible over the next little while and to try and make sure that these projects come online in a timely manner,” he said.
“We’re going to have a declining population once the copper mine closes down, so that’s going to create problems with liveability and those sorts of things and bringing people in the area.
“There is interest from businesses to want to grow the area or maintain the area, so you know, I think we’ll be okay.”
Originally published as Challenges for extracting critical minerals in North Queensland
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