Another NT phosphate mine in the pipeline?By Lorna...

Another NT phosphate mine in the pipeline?

By Lorna Perry

Tuesday, 08/12/2009

It's expected there will be a phosphate mine in production in the Barkly by mid next year and in a couple of years time another one could be up and running just up the road.

About 300 kilometres north east of the Wonarah prospect Phosphate Australia has been suring up a resource at Highland Plains on the NT/Queensland border.

Up to a million tonnes of water is needed to support a mine that's expected to produce between 500 and a million tonnes of phosphate per year.

The company's just finished a water survey and managing director Andrew James says it was an initial investigation to see what water was there.

"Had positive findings for all four bores that we put in, and we pump tested the best bore and that gave us a result of around about 25 litres per second.

"Still early days for us but based on the performance of other bores in the area and looking at what we were able to achieve, we believe that probably a five bore field... will be able to support a mining operation there for over a ten to fifteen year life at least."

He explains a lot of water is needed to upgrade the mined resource into a useable product.

"Primarily when we turn the rock into a product that someone will actually want to turn into fertiliser, we need to upgrade it.

"That process requires a lot of water."

The project area is located on the northern most aquifer in the Georgina Basin and it's not yet known how much water is there.

Mr James says the current aquifer use is pastoral and the million tonnes needed for the project would not impact on local users.

"Far more water falls in that area every wet season than is ever used at the moment and we would hope that the data we gather would support our position that we'd be able to tap into those supplies without having any impact on the local current users."

If given the go ahead by the NT Government and if all the boxes are ticked, he says a mine could be up and running by the end of 2011, start of 2012.

Avenues are being explored for transporting the material and options include building a load facility in the Gulf of Carpentaria or installing a slurry pipeline operation.

Mr James says a workforce of 100 to 200 people would be needed if the mine was to go ahead and a couple of traditional owners are working at the project site already.

In this report: Andrew James, managing director, Phosphate Australia.