Minister for Natural Resources, Mines and Energy, the Hon. Dr Anthony Lynham, has granted Resolute Mining Limited (Resolute) nine new mining leases – a major step for the company’s $150 million project to extend the life of its Ravenswood gold mine operations. Dr Lynham said the new leases acknowledge Resolute’s significant contribution to the small mining town of Ravenswood (located approximately 40 kilometres south of Mingela, and roughly 89 kilometres from Charters Towers in Queensland). “The company has pre-funded and commenced refurbishing and relocating the historic Ravenswood State School, p... more

The Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) has recommended environmental approval for the expansion of the Greenbushes Lithium Mine, located approximately 250 kilometres south of Perth, subject to conditions such as the protection of threatened black cockatoos unique to Australia’s south-west. Talison Lithium Australia Pty Ltd (Talison Lithium) and its predecessor companies have been producing lithium from the Greenbushes Lithium Operations for over 25 years and it is recognised as the longest continuously operated mining area in Western Australia. Tin mining commenced in the Greenbushes area in 1888 a... more

Queensland Minister for Natural Resources, Mines and Energy, the Hon. Dr Anthony Lynham has announced the approval of mining leases for the Cameby Downs coal mine, which would increase production and extend mine life at the open cut site. The Cambey Downs Mine is an open cut operation which is located in the Surat Basin approximately 360 kilometres northwest of Brisbane. Following the purchase of Syntech Resources by Yancoal Australia in August 2011, the Cameby Downs Mine and several surrounding and regional tenements are 100 per cent owned by Yancoal Australia’s major shareholder, Yanzhou Coal Mining C... more

Altura Mining Limited  has completed an initial round of exploratory drilling as a follow up to a geophysical survey utilising the induced polarisation method at its Cleopatra Prospect. The Cleopatra Prospect is located within Altura’s E45/2363 tenement, approximately 3.5 kilometres southeast of the Altura Lithium Mine, in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Dipole-Dipole Induced Polarisation surveying was carried out in September 2018 over wide spaced lines at the Cleopatra Prospect. The purpose of the survey was to detect and delineate potential responses associated with known gold anomalies disc... more

A seismic survey program has commenced on QEM Limited's (QEM) 100 per cent owned Julia Creek project, covering approximately 496 square kilometres in the Julia Creek area of North Western Queensland. Julia Creek is located over the vast Toolebuc Formation, which is the host to widespread vanadium mineralisation, and is considered an ‘oil shale’, meaning it has the potential to hold significant petroleum resources. QEM announced in February this year that it had engaged geological service company, Velseis Pty Ltd, to conduct the 26-kilometre 2-D seismic survey which would outline the geological structur... more

EPIK Co. Ltd. has executed an agreement with Watpac for the provision of  design, engineering and construction services for the onshore infrastructure components of the Newcastle LNG floating storage regasification unit (FSRU) import terminal at the Port of Newcastle. Situated at the back-end of the existing gas transmission network, the Port of Newcastle is one of Australia’s largest ports and a major trade and logistics hub, making it an ideal area to develop an LNG import terminal. The potential investment for the Newcastle LNG project is estimated to be approximately $AU547 million and is set to inc... more

Sheffield Resources Limited has secured a 15-year agreement with Woodside Energy Limited and Energy Developments Pty Ltd (EDL) for the supply and delivery of 1,950 terajoules per annum of liquified natural gas (LNG) to the Thunderbird Mineral Sands Project, in northern Western Australia. As per the agreement, LNG will be supplied from Woodside’s Pluto LNG Truck Loading Facility near Karratha and transported to Thunderbird’s LNG storage facility by a newly formed joint venture between Woodside and EDL. The Woodside-EDL joint venture will own and operate a purpose-built road tanker fleet to deliver the L... more

Western Australia’s single largest user of natural gas, Alcoa of Australia Limited has secured three new gas supply agreements which in full will supply close to 25 per cent of the company’s gas requirements from 2020. The agreements with BHP, Woodside and Chevron coupled with other gas supply contracts, which were announced in 2015 (Quadrant Energy and Santos), complete Alcoa’s gas portfolio to fuel its Kwinana, Pinjarra and Wagerup alumina refineries for the mid-term. The company consumes approximately 40 per cent of the gas supplied to the south west of Western Australia and about 25 per cent of t... more

The first large scale project in British billionaire Sanjeev Gupta’s plan to generate one gigawatt (GW) of dispatchable renewable energy in South Australia has been approved. The 280 megawatt (MW) Cultana Solar Farm, to be located on 1100 hectares (ha) of vacant land to the north of the Whyalla Steelworks in the Upper Spencer Gulf town of Whyalla, has just been signed off by the South Australian Government. The Cultana Solar Farm will feature 780,000 solar panels capable of generating 600 GW hours of energy generation per year – which is enough to power almost 100,000 homes while offsetting 492,000 ton... more

Energy Minister Bill Johnston has opened APA Group's new Badgingarra Wind Farm in Hill River, positioned approximately 220 kilometres north of Perth. The $315 million Badgingarra Wind Farm consists 37 3.6-Megawatt (MW) wind turbines installed with a hub height of 85 metres and a tip height of 150 metres. The wind farm will be co-located with APA's $40 million 17.5 MW Badgingarra Solar Farm, which is currently under construction. The potential energy output from Badgingarra Wind Farm is equivalent to the power required for over 115,000 Western Australian homes. Together with APA's nearby Emu Downs Win... more

Australian energy generator, AGL Energy Ltd has secured the right to develop, own and operate a 250-megawatt pumped hydro energy storage project at Hillgrove Resources Limited’s Kanmantoo Copper Mine in the Adelaide Hills region of South Australia. The contract allows AGL to transform the Kanmantoo open pit mine into a pumped hydro facility, while Hillgrove will retain processing and mining rights outside the Giant Pit. AGL’s Executive General Manager of Wholesale Markets, Richard Wrightson said the signing of binding agreements was the start of a multiple stage process to progress the project, includi... more

The AUD$850 million Coopers Gap Wind Farm near Kingaroy in Queensland is now one step closer to getting on the grid, thanks to the completion of a nearby substation. Publicly-owned transmission operator, Powerlink, has energised the new 275 Kilovolt (kV) substation that will connect one of Australia’s largest wind farms to the electricity grid and 9 million Australian energy users. The Cooper’s Gap Wind Farm is expected to generate up to 440 Megawatts of renewable energy – the equivalent of powering a city the size of Ipswich. Energy Minister Dr Anthony Lynham said Queensland has led the way with ... more

The Queensland Government has ticked off a major milestone on a proposed $1 billion overhead high-voltage electricity transmission line which would connect major energy users and North West Queensland’s public to the national electricity grid. Queensland’s independent Coordinator-General declared CuString Pty Ltd’s CopperString Project a ‘coordinated project’ on 27 April. The proposed project is a 1,100-kilometre 275-kilovolt overhead high-voltage electricity transmission line connecting the North West Minerals Provence and Mount Isa to the National Electricity Market grid south of Townsville. ... more

The Queensland Government has fast-tracked $100 million, as part of its $225 million commitment to Townsville’s water security, to keep construction of the Haughton 36.5 kilometre water pipeline moving. Member for Townsville, Scott Stewart said the $100 million payment (paid last week) would go towards supporting up to 1000 jobs over the life of the project. “We all know Townsville has been doing it tough and is currently recovering from an unprecedented flooding event. The jobs that flow from the Haughton pipeline are a shot in the arm during the rebuilding period,” Mr Stewart said. There are mo... more

Construction of the $1 billion Albemarle Kemerton Plant in Western Australia, Australia’s largest lithium processing plant, has commenced. The plant will become Australia's largest lithium hydroxide plant, with approval to produce up to 100,000 tonnes per annum of premium battery grade lithium hydroxide. Western Australia is currently the number one global producer of lithium, the second largest global producer of rare earths, the third largest global producer of cobalt and the fourth largest global producer of nickel. The Government of Western Australia is working with Albemarle to ensure job opportu... more

Premier of Western Australia Mark McGowan, and Federal Minister for the Environment Melissa Price, have officially ‘turned the sod’ at Australia’s first thermal waste-to-energy facility in Kwinana, Western Australia. The facility, named Avertas Energy, will use state-of-the-art technology to process 400,000 tonnes of household, commercial and industrial waste each year to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 400,000 tonnes (equivalent to taking 85,000 cars off Perth’s roads). Once operational in 2021, the facility will generate and export 36 megawatts of baseload electricity t... more

Canadian technology company, ELYSIS has announced the site for its new research and development facility in the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region of Québec. The ELYSIS joint venture, by Rio Tinto and Alcoa Corporation, is working to commercialise a breakthrough technology that eliminates all direct greenhouse gases (GHG) from the traditional aluminium smelting process, instead producing pure oxygen. In Canada alone, the technology has the potential to reduce GHG emissions by 7 million tonnes, which is equivalent to removing 1.8 million cars off the road. The company believes this technology could reduce... more

ASX-listed emerging diamond group, Lucapa Diamond Company Limited, in partnership with the Government of the Kingdom of Lesotho, have announced the recovery of a top-colour 55-carat diamond from the new 1.1 Million tonne per annum (Mtpa) Mothae kimberlite plant in Lesotho, Africa. The 55 carat stone is the fifth over 50-carat diamond recovered to date from Lucapa's 70 per cent owned Mothae project; in March, an 83.9-carat diamond was recovered. Commercial production from the Mothae mine commenced in January 2019 following the successful commissioning and ramp-up phases for the new plant and an earlier bulk... more

Anson Resources Limited has commenced drilling the re-entry of the Skyline Unit 1 well at its Paradox Brine Project, located in Utah, USA. Anson is targeting lithium-rich brines in the deepest part of the Paradox Basin. Lithium values of up to 1,700ppm have historically been recorded in close proximity to Anson’s claim area. According to the company, the Skyline Unit 1 well had access that required little upgrade work and had previously recorded brine flow from historical drilling. This marks the third re-entry of an existing well carried out by the company at the Paradox Brine Project to sample brines f... more

BlackEarth Minerals NL has provided an update on the assay results received from trenching programs at the Maniry Graphite Project in Southern Madagascar. The Maniry trenching program was completed in early December with 47 trenches excavated for 4,314 metres, with 2,183 samples collected for analysis. 479 assay results were returned from the laboratory with the remaining assay results expected to be received and reported upon during the current quarter. The most impressive assay results were received from Trench MNT041 and MNT041a which were excavated at the Razafy NW prospect, these are summarised bel... more