The Queensland Resources Council says the prospects for mining resources in the region remains bright as it powers the local and state economy.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Policy director at the QRC, Andrew Barger, told the Mount Isa MineX conference on Wednesday the prospects and potential for one of the world's great mineral resource regions remained positive and was a critical resource for the Queensland and Australian economy.
Mr Barger said that in last 12 months Queensland's biggest exports were metallurgical coal ($22b), LNG ($10b) and minerals which also contributed $10 billion to the state's economy, buoyed by strong copper prices with analysts calling copper "the new gold" and billionaire miners like Robert Friedland predicting "psychedelic demand" for copper as the price hits a 10 year high.
"I presume psychedelic is a good thing here," Mr Barger joked.
For the North West that psychedelic demand meant 4494 full time jobs and $390 million in wages alone in the last year with $638m spent on goods and services purchased locally as well as community contributions.
There was also $4.5 billion in royalties from the region which flows to Queensland as a whole.
Mr Barger said the total economic contribution of mining to the north west economy in 2019-20 was $1.8 billion representing over a third (36pc) of the region's total GDP.
The flow-on effects support another 6276 jobs and additional value add of $789 million
In terms of mineral processing Mr Barger said those numbers were created by 37pc copper, 28pc zinc, 19pc lead, 12pc silver and 4pc gold, showing the region was "not a one trick pony".
Mr Barger said the commodity demand outlook to 2030 was strong for gold, silver and zinc, very strong for copper and even better still for rare earth minerals and critical minerals.
"There are a whole lot of new commodities out of the region that people are interested in that provide bright prospects for the next couple of generations of production houses and miners," Mr Barger said.
Mr Barger said the rapid deployment of clean energy technologies as part of energy transitions implied a significant demand for minerals.
"You need lots of rare earths in solar panels and turbines, with extraordinary growth forecast in the next decade," he said.
"The metallurgy of where the rare earths can occur is co-located with the already known metallurgy in the region so we'll be seeing miners moving from two or three commodities to four or five, and suddenly you are talking about rather than train loads of commodities you'll have handfuls and suitcase-full, but these commodities selling at a higher price.".
Copper and the rare earths are essential items in electric cars as well as solar batteries and turbines so will be needed to power the new economy.
"Importantly for this region commodities like copper, cobalt, the rare earth minerals and zinc are all there in spades," Mr Barger said.
"Queensland is well positioned in brand name commodities with consumers wanting to know where they come from and are not from a conflict zone."
He said the John Campbell Miles drill core storage facility in Mount Isa would play a key role with miners taking a new look at geological samples that go back half a century for minerals they may have ignored in the past that suddenly have increased in value.
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
Bookmark https://www.northweststar.com.au/
Make sure you are signed up for our breaking and regular headlines newsletters
Follow us on Twitter
Follow us on Instagram
Follow us on Google News