daytrades may 3 afternoon, page-20

SYDNEY (Dow Jones)--Australia will open its Woomera Prohibited Area, a closed area of the country's barren outback nearly as large as Greece, to mineral development that could be worth up to A$35 billion, the country's government said Tuesday.

The 127,000 square kilometer prohibited area--a missile testing range built around the site where the U.K.'s first atomic bombs were tested in the 1950s--is largely closed
to the public, although local Aboriginal communities and some livestock farmers have access to portions of the South Australian site.

Completing a review of the area's status, the government said it would introduce a time-share model whereby users of the area other than Australia's Department of Defence would be able to have access to the region, which is prospective for iron ore, gold, uranium and copper.

"The Woomera Prohibited Area has great economic potential, with estimates that more than $35 billion of developments, including iron ore, gold and uranium projects would be possible over the next decade," the country's resources minister Martin Ferguson said in a statement.

The prohibited area contains parts of the Gawler and Stuart cratons, which contain significant reserves of base metals such as BHP Billiton Ltd.'s (BHP) Olympic Dam mine and OZ Minerals Ltd.'s (OZL.AU) Prominent Hill site.

The attempted takeover of OZ Minerals by China's state-controlled China Minmetals Non-Ferrous Metals Co. in 2009 hit a hurdle when Australia's Treasury ruled that Minmetals couldn't take control of the Prominent Hill mine because of its location within the prohibited area.