234 Esso Exploration and Production Aus Ltd As part of the world's biggest corporate entity, Exxon, Esso Australia was, during the '70s, involved in uranium exploitation, apart from its activities in oil, gas, and base minerals exploration and production.
It is exploring for oil and gas in the Bass Strait region. It holds 25% in the Hall Creek coal JV; is with Amax and EZ Industries at Golden Grove, Tasmania; teamed up, in 1977, with Newmex exploration to search for minerals including yellowcake in the Ashburton gold fields region (1).
It was also said to be interested in participating in the Olympic Dam project (Roxby Downs) in 1978, an interest since then lost (2).
It also became a JV partner with two Australian oil companies in the mammoth Rundle oil shale project in Queensland (3). However, in 1981 the company announced its doubts on the feasibility of the project; the Queensland government said it would not renew the lease unless the partners spent an additional US$39 million on studies; and the project is currently on hold (4).
In late 1981, Esso announced it would take 35% in the Gloucester steam coal project in New South Wales.
In 1978, it joined with Urangesellschaft, as foreign equity partners, in the prospective uranium mine at Yeelirrie, with Esso holding 15%, Urangesellschaft 10%, and Western Mining the remaining 75% (5). In May 1982, however, the company pulled out of Yeelirrie, despite agreeing to buy another 35% of the production and sinking nearly US$20M into its planning stages (80% of the Stage 1 costs). This was, said Esso, because the project was "not economically viable under the terms of the joint venture agreement and Esso's current assessment of the world's uranium market outlook" (6). (For further information see Yeelirrie and Exxon.)
Together with Carr Boyd, and Otter, Esso Australia entered a uranium exploration JV at Pandanus Creek, Northern Territory, in 1979 (7).
By the end of the eighties, Esso Australia's main commitments were top oil exploration and production in the Bass Strait oilfields (with BHP), in the Canning Basin (Queensland) and its 50% holding in the Rundle oil shale projects It also held a 35% interest in the Golden Grove base metals project in WA, as well as coal interests in Queensland and NSW. In 1989 ir bought more coal assets in NSW - the Ulan and Leamington mines - while the Golden Grove prospect moved towards production (8).
In 1988, it also moved to acquire 50% of the Leamington coal mine owned by CSR, in the Hunter Valley (NSW) (9), and just over a year later, returned to coal exploration in Queensland, with a 55% interest (Mitsubishi 45%) in a major steam coal deposit near Clermont, which could produce around 6 million tonnes a year for export (10).
SOURCE: "The Gulliver File - Mines, people and land: a global battleground" by Roger Moody.
Published in 1992 by Minewatch, 218 Liverpool Road, London Nl ILE, UK, and WISE-Glen Aplin, Po Box 87, Glen Aplin Q 4381, Australia.
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