450 Ocean Resources NL This mineral exploration company, with HQ in Canberra, has interests on and off shore. It is linked with CRAE/CRA Exploration off Cape Moreton, New South Wales.
It has come up against Aboriginal opposition in recent years to at least two of its projects. At Wallaha Lake, New South Wales (NSW), Aborigines opposed a prospective gold and silver mine (1).
Since 1977, the company hasn't proceeded with its uranium claims in Arnhemland (just north of the Jabiluka Mine) because of opposition from traditional owners and the Northern Land Council. The Ormac JV originally comprised Canadian Superior (25%), Pancontinental Mining (10%), Consolidated Goldfields of Australia Ltd (20%) and Ocean Resources (45%). However, Pancontinental and Consolidated Goldfields quit the venture in December 1980, leaving Canadian Superior with two-thirds and Ocean with one-third - with a shareholding exceeding 1 million shares. Aborigines have received equity interests in Ocean Resources (1).
The land at issue comprises part of the Alligator Rivers Region Stage 2, over which land claims are still being heard by the Aboriginal Land Commissioner (2). However, the Mines Department of the Northern Territory at the same time announced that it planned to give ten licences for exploration in the area (1).
In April 1983, Ocean Resources said that the partners in the Ormac JV had been offered EL 3106 prospect subject to satisfactory negotiations with the Northern Land Council (4).
In 1989, Ocean resumed a 1980 JV with CRA to explore for minerals over the whole of southern Queensland's offshore coastal areas, after the Mineral Submerged Lands Act gave companies a qualified go-ahead (5). Although it has relinquished a gold exploration JV with Shell at Tumut, NSW, it retains an exploration licence for the bewitching metal at East Murchison, Western Australia, and also its 66.67% interest in the East Alligator uranium prospect.
Ocean has also now pulled out of its tin leases at the holiday "paradise" of Phuket in Thailand, due to vocal opposition (5).
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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