Australia's Mineral Sector and its Challenges

摘要

Australia has been called the "lucky country" - and when it comes to its endowment of natural resources, this is an appropriate name. While aboriginal people were mining for stone and ochre for thousands of years, the arrival of British convicts and European settlers led to the expansion of mining to cover a variety of minerals. Notably, coal was mined for heating fuel soon after the convict settlement (mining starting from around 1797), while the first metal to be mined, in 1841, was lead. In the 1850's Australia experienced the Gold Rush, which brought immigrants from across the world seeking their fortune. Continuing to grow through the next century, output of other metals, particularly tin, lead, copper and silver, increased significantly, with a focus on exports. After some restrictions on exports in the period during and after World War Two a change in policy accompanied the discovery and investment in infrastructure to extract iron ore in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Though following the global cycles of minerals demand and supply, the overall trend in production has been a continuous expansion. Australia now produces a large percentage of most globally-traded mineral commodities, and has large remaining reserves. In 2015 Australia accounted for more than 45% of the world's production of lithium; 36% of iron ore; 28% of bauxite; 17% of alumina; 23% of industrial diamonds; 4% of manganese; 13% of lead; 9% of nickel; 9% of gold; 5% of copper and cobalt as well as 9% of uranium and 7% of coal. The Australian economy (in 2015) is dependent on mining for around 7% of its GDP while its mineral exports account for around 50% of the value of all of its product exports, as shown in Figure 1. The importance of its global position within the minerals sector—both in terms of production and leadership in other areas such as technology, safety, and environmental remediation-make the minerals sector an important focus for government, academia and industry.