WMC is Australia's second leading mining house (after CRA) (1), with an "extraordinary record of mineral discoveries" (2, 3), notable successes in discovering oil and gas (4), important investments (through Alcoa) in bauxite, alumina and aluminium, in copper and coal (5), interests in talc (6,7) and - over the last fifteen years - significant flirtations with mineral sands (8, 9), involvement in phosphates (through its erstwhile holding in Broken Hill South) (10), and multi-mineral deposits, such as Benambra (11) (a JV with BP which it put up for sale in late 1986) (12).In late 1987, flush with huge profits from 1986/1987 and cash reserves of some A$ 1300 million (13), WMC ventured into gold in North America - the first time it had gone out of the Australia/Fiji orbit (13). It bought up Northgate Mines, a wholly owned subsidiary of Northgate Exploration (14), and Seabright Resources Inc. It then bid for Grandview Resources and Northgate's Norbeau Mines Inc subsidiary (15). It also made a bid for control of Western Goldfields Inc (15). Within a few months, however, it was expressing discontent at the deal with Seabright (whose gold resources appear to have been less than originally claimed) (16), but made clear it was in the market for even more North American acquisitions and big ones at that - employing assets in the region of US$1 billion (17).
Dominated over the last decade by two of the most controversial and reactionary figures in Australian mining, Arvi Parbo and Hugh Morgan, WMC has long been seen as "one of the biggest wheeler-dealers in the big mining league" (18), with an enviable ability to juggle figures and display a profit. (Searching through the maze of Western Mining's statement of annual results, commented the Financial Times in 1982, was "a task even skilled accountants may feel requires the assistance of a compass and guide dog") (19).
With numerous associates and subsidiaries, WMC's influence on Australian mining - not to mention its political ascendancy in Western Australia (WA) and AMIC (Australian Mining Industry Council) - can hardly be denied. But, although it holds the majority interests in the country's important third-generation uranium mine, Roxby Downs, as well as Yeelirrie, its fortunes are largely dependent on just two products: nickel and gold. It is the western world's third largest producer of nickel (6), and Australia's largest producer of gold (6).
Nickel operations are centred on Kambalda (WA) (20) with concentrators at Kambalda and Windarra (6) - though some operations at Windarra closed in 1986 (7). There is also a smelter at Kalgoorlie (21 ) and a refinery at Kwinana (22). WMC has also had a JV with BHP at Carnilya Hill (WA) (18).
In 1988, WMC was faced with considerable industrial disruptions of its nickel mines, as hundreds of workers went on strike at Kambalda, fighting a decision by the company to contract out its underground workings (23). The strike ended in March 1988 (24). It was a recent reminder of the struggle between workers and the company which has lasted for at least a decade, and the tendency of WMC - when faced with the sensitivity of nickel production to fluctuations in world steel and automobile production, strategic stockpile build-up in the USA (particularly) and the accretion of nickel stockpiles driving down the price - (25) to accelerate dismissals and "rationalisations". Whereas, until the mid-eighties, WMC apparently maintained close contact with its workforce, informing them of likely redundancies, within the following two years workers were deliberately kept in the dark (25). This sense of betrayal on the part of the workforce (members of the Australian Workers Union) was deepened when the company's 1985 results showed a big profit, alongside a decision to make major cut-backs: the profit largely sustained by a favourable change in the Australian dollar's exchange value (25, 26).
Industrial disputes Soon after the 1988 strikes, Colin Wise, the senior counsel for WMC, launched an attack (clearly company-inspired) on what he called "a great outpouring of state law" in Australia, which had enormously restricted the capacity of companies to exploit mineral deposits. He compared the bringing on-stream of the Kambalda operations ("to get that operation into commercial production required discussions with just three government departments; the operators simply went ahead and built the project; no-one's life was disturbed; no sensitive environment was destroyed or interfered with; no politician or minority group with an axe to grind or a political agenda to push was in a position to interfere") with the costs of bringing Roxby Downs on-stream ten years later. "A total of fifty-four state and federal government departments and instrumentalities have become involved ... a geologist who today found another Roxby Downs may not be greeted with the same degree of excitement and acclamation as would previously have been the case" (27).
But it is gold mining which is WMC's most profitable sector (22), and the company's role as a gold producer cannot be underestimated. Western Australia accounts for 80% of the country's gold production (28) and WMC is the undisputed leader in the state and country (29), although its dependence on open-cut mining of older-discovered deposits (30) means it has been looking further afield for new deposits, in order to maintain its status, starting up at the Emu mine near Agnew (WA) and at Lady Bountiful near Broad Arrow (7). It also has a JV at Stawell in Victoria, where its interests are 75% (Great Boulder Holdings holding 50% and Central Norseman Gold another 50%), and is sampling old gold mines at Bendigo, Victoria (22).
Gold In 1983, WMC signed an agreement with Emperor Gold Mining - an Australian company for a 10% share in the Vatukoula mine in the Tavua district of Fiji (31). The following year, WMC lifted its share to 20% (32) and this important prospect was expanded in 1985 (33).
WMC also had a JV with the Hill 50 Gold Mining company at Mount Magnet in WA (6) until 1987, when it took over 100% control of the company (22).
For 54 years, WMC's gold mining was based on the famed "Golden Mile" at Kalgoorlie, with operations concentrated on Fimiston and Mount Charlotte - areas claimed by Aboriginal people, from which they had long been removed (34). But in 1987, WMC ceded most of its interests in these mines to Alan Bond (35). The same year, it sold its 50% stake in Lady Bountiful to CEX (Consolidated Exploration Ltd), in which WMC now holds 23% (36).
Set up in 1933 to explore for and develop gold properties in Western Australia (20), WMC saw its assets grow dramatically during the late 1960s, thanks largely to a boom in nickel sales. In 1970-71 it increased its share capital ten times and, between 1969 and 1981, its assets nearly twelve times (from A$88 million to A$1024 million). In the same period, the proportion of shares held by ordinary shareholders diminished significantly (37) thus increasing the control over the company by relatively few people. Indeed, in the early 1980s, only twenty shareholders held just under half the total shares (37). Among these, large Australian banks and insurance companies predominate: with ANZ Nominees holding the lion's share, followed (in 1982) by National Mutual Nominees Ltd (37) . Although WMC has long prided itself on being an Australian-owned company - and (unlike CRA) strictly observing the federal government's restrictions on foreign ownership (it modified its Articles of Association in 1983 to achieve this, as well as issuing a tranche of new shares solely to Australian institutions) (38, 39) - it has long cultivated foreign companies as partners in key mining ventures (40) and purchased crucial interests in two other companies, Alcoa Australia and Broken Hill South (BHS). BHS was acquired in 1980, after a scrap with CRA over the spoils: CRA ended up with Broken Hill South's coal and copper interests, in exchange for dropping its bid for the company as a whole (41) . Two years later, however, WMC sold off its 80.2% stake in the company and ruthlessly asset-stripped it (42).
Alcoa is of considerable importance to WMC its third biggest revenue earner in 1983, it increased its holding in 1986 by buying out a 12% interest formerly held by North Broken Hill Holdings Ltd (7). Alcoa of Australia has two aluminium smelters in Australia - the second of which, at Portland in Victoria, has been the target of enormous and strenuous efforts by Aboriginal people to protect their sacred sites (43), and opposition by conservationists (44). An alumina refinery at Wagerup was mothballed in 1982 (19) but recommissioned in 1984 (45).
Sir Arvi Parbo has been the chairman both of WMC and Alcoa of Australia and, in those capacities, often delivered himself of reactionary opinions, causing outrage among environmentalists, opposition MPs, trade unionists and Aboriginal groups. In 1982, he attacked the federal government's introduction of a shorter working week (46) and, the following year, blasted "unnecessary" legislation, pioneered by environmental and other pressure groups (47). But it is WMC's managing director, Hugh Morgan, who has earned himself the accolade of corporate Australia's most antediluvian mining leader. He has - to quote an incisive study of WMC's corporate campaigning in the Australian Bulletin for 1985 - "... pronounced on the crippling impact of arbitration, on the affront to civilised values in Aboriginal affairs developments [to wit, calling Aboriginal spirituality "paganism"], on the anti-social nature of conservationists [dubbing them "Ned Kellys"], and he has argued that Australia's historians are becoming culturally seditious, its politicians basic plunderers, its public servants medieval in outlook and its unions despotic" (48). More recently, Morgan has demanded the abolition of the Federal Aboriginal Affairs Department (49), launched a full-frontal attack on Jesuit support for Aboriginal land rights, and made a veiled threat to opponents of the Australian Bicentennial that "... popular retribution will surely follow [the campaign]" (50).
It is easy to dismiss Morgan as an ignorant, racist, capitalist - in fact he deploys sophisticated, if totally unfounded, arguments with all the appropriate rhetoric (51). His company is also guilty of benefitting from some of the very measures he attacks: notably closed shops (48). And it is clear that his prime design is to prepare the ground for an encroaching middle-Australian "enlightened" conservatism - at least in Western Australia - by raising issues with deliberate provocation so as to unnerve the opposition.
In this respect, it is Morgan's presence at the helm of the Western Australian Chamber of Mines and of the AMIC - when it launched the most vituperative and costly campaign in Australian advertising history, against Aboriginal land rights - which gives more cause for concern than his after-dinner flatulence. It is also important to realise that, the WMC represents a closer-knit body of top executives, than virtually any other mining company in Australia, with more concern to interfere in state-based politics than almost any other corporation: "messiahs of the New Right" as the Bulletin sagely dubbed them (48).
In 1977, the Federal Australian Liberal government decided to proceed with uranium mining, after the Fox Report on the Ranger mine proposals gave a qualified green light (52). Initially, permission was given to plunder only the Ranger and Jabiluka (Pancontinental) deposits (53). While promising a "national code" on uranium mining, Aboriginal royalties, and a scientific committee to "look after the environment" in the Arnhemland National Park, the government's decision also opened the way for further exploitation of uranium on a state-wide basis (54). The decision was greeted with dismay and alarm, not only by the anti-uranium/anti-nuclear movement (54), but also by the Australian Labor Party (ALP), trade unions in the ACTU, Trades Councils, and - in particular - Aboriginal organisations (55).
By this time, WMC was well advanced in its plans to exploit the Yeelirrie deposit although the huge amount of attention given to potential mines in the Northern Territory - followed by the government's touting for uranium contracts overseas (56), and the fact that Yeelirrie is an expensive, low-grade deposit - did nothing immediately to raise the company's fortunes (57). The Yeelirree project was initially planned in two stages. Stage One was to last three years, involving the construction, testing and development, of the orebody at a cost of A$21 million, of which WMC would contribute 10% (58, 59). Stage Two, consisting of the mine development and mill construction, would last another 3 years, funded mainly (75%) by WMC (58, 60). The deposit in 1978 was estimated to possess nearly 47,000 tonnes of contained U3O8, yielding 33.8 million tonnes of ore at a grade of 0.14%, with vanadium pentoxide as a byproduct. Although this is a fairly low grade of ore - especially compared with some of the Northern Territory deposits - the high-grade ore (6.91 million tonnes treated at 1.21 million tonnes a year) would be mined first, giving an estimated value of nearly one billion dollars A$900 million) based on a selling price of A$40/lb (61).
Yeelirrie It was clear that the vast majority of the finance for the development (at least of Stage One) had to come from overseas. After talks with Wyoming Mineral (secret ones, only revealed by Friend of the Earth when they filched the famed "cartel" documents from MKU offices) (62), WMC reached agreement in August 1978 with Esso Exploration and Production Australia Inc (an Exxon subsidiary), for the US company to take up 15% of the equity, and the West German UG (Urangesellschaft) another 10% (9, 59). By 1979, one-third of the overseas partners' financing has been raised (8).
WMC's share of Stage Two - expected to cost A$300 million - would be secured solely against the company's share of the Yeelirrie project assets; 35% of the cost financed through a firm prepayment against sales of 35% of the product to Esso, and the balance through pre-sales to other customers; although if such monies were not forthcoming "Esso may elect to provide this finance" (9). UG's role was limited to paying a "cash entry premium" on commitment to Stage One, and an additional premium to Stage Two (9). The company hoped that full production would be in sway by the end of 1984, although a decision to proceed with the second stage would only be made at the end of the first (9).
WMC could count on the support of the pro-nuclear state governments of the notorious Charles Court (63) (the architect of the take-over of Aboriginal land at Noonkanbah a little later) and, by the end of 1978, it looked likely that approval would be given (64). By this time, the WA government was urging support for the construction of a pilot uranium treatment plant - a proposal strenuously attacked by the ALP and the regional Campaign Against Nuclear Energy (CANE) (65).
Barely a year after WMC had drafted its environmental impact statement (EIS) for Yeelirrie, it was given the green light to proceed (58). Yellowcake and red cake would be packaged in 425kg steel drums and transported by flat-top trucks to Fremantle for export, while tailings would be dumped in "open-cut graves" and "progressively integrated with other waste" (58) at a cost of some A$320 million (61). Certain parts of the operations would be "automated" to reduce radiation (58).
Both the substance of the EIS, and the manner in which it had been rushed for approval, were attacked by environmental organisations. CANE declared that there was no guarantee the waste would not be used for building purposes at a later stage, and promises of jobs were "illusory", since there was likely to be a uranium over-supply by 1985 (a prediction later proved to be correct). CANE protested that only four weeks had been given for public submissions on the draft EIS (66), while Friends of the Earth (FoE) noted that only 28 critical submissions had been made (67).
Considerable controversy attached to the proposed pilot processing plant at Kalgoorlie, aimed to be built by 1985, with production of 4000 tonnes a year - a fifth of the total Australian output so optimistically predicted by 1990 - and a workforce of around 850 (61).
Initial testing of ore would start quickly at the site, and 27,000 tonnes of radioactive wastes would be deposited in a basin 4 kilometres away (68). Among safety measures proposed for personnel was a prohibition on smoking (69).
CANE condemned the pilot plant as "the thin edge of the wedge" of full-scale mining (66), which of course it was intended to be. And in March 1979, after the mine's official go-ahead, the Transport Workers' Union, the Australian Railways Union, the Seamen's Union, and the Waterside Workers' Federation, all undertook to ban the handling of any material destined for the Kalgoorlie plant, and its transportation through Esperance to Kalgoorlie and Yeelirrie itself (70).
The EPA (Environmental Protection Authority) report on the mine claimed that "no Aborigines live at or are dependent on Yeelirrie", and that the area had been surveyed by the Western Australian Museum, identifying only one site near likely operations, with another seven that demanded protection under the Aboriginal Heritage Act (61). Sir Arvi Parbo, at both the 1977 and 1978 WMC annual general meetings, made even more erroneous claims submitting that there were no Aborigines "within hundreds of miles" of the mine, and that Western Australians living in towns were too far away to be affected by operations (37). In fact, several Aboriginal communities have a claim on Yeelirrie and there are at least 30 sites of significance in the project area (71). The name itself ("place of death") is a grim reminder of the potential for destruction posed by uranium mining. (See also UG).
By 1982, the pilot project was operating (though under some secrecy) (73), and contracts had been concluded with Japanese utilities, as well as with the project's partners (72, 74). But suddenly, in May that year, Esso announced that it would be withdrawing from the project, although it would complete financing of Stage One (75, 76). The news was greeted with surprise and alarm in Australian financial circles (77, 78). It had seemed that Exxon's participation in the mine gave the company a valuable entree into Australia's uranium market - and access to the plan for an enrichment plant, being touted in the late 1970s and early 1980s (79).
Nonetheless, Esso had also shouldered much of the financial burden of the first stage of development and, in 1981, it had already taken the decision to withdraw from uranium mining, as the market slid downwards (77). Esso's withdrawal was followed by a "savage" drop in WMC's share price (77), despite UG promising that it would possibly take up some of Esso's relinquished equity (75).
At the same time, the WA Trades and Labour Council (TLC) confirmed its opposition to uranium mining, citing Yeelirrie in particular (80).
In the next few years, the Australian Labor Party's anti-uranium policy was to be virtually reversed - as predicted by Arvi Parbo in 1982 (81). By then, the Olympic Dam/Roxby Downs uranium project was well under-way. Not surprisingly, Yeelirrie was soon consigned to the back-burner. The French government revealed an interest in possibly acquiring Esso's 15% stake (82), but by 1983 WMC was still looking for partners (83). Four years later the position had not materially changed except that, in 1984, in order to retain its pastoral lease over Yeelirrie, WMC said it would restock it as a sheep station (84).
Comparing Yeelirrie with Roxby Downs/Olympic Dam is like matching a clay pigeon with a golden eagle. Almost certainly the world's (or at least the western world's) biggest multi-mineral deposit discovered in recent years - and site of the world's largest uranium find (notwithstanding north Saskatchewan) (85) the project was brought to production stage in almost record time: a bare decade and a quarter from its discovery in 1975.
Olympic Dam By mid-1988, Roxby had not actually gone into production, but a main shaft and service decline were completed and there seemed nothing to prevent initial production by the end of the year: 1600 tons of uranium (22), at nominal capacity, rising to 2000 tons (86) of U3O8. Estimates of gradings at Roxby at the time, were 0.8kg/ton U308, 0.6g/tonne gold, 6 g/tonne silver, 2.5% copper, in proven and probable ore reserves of some 450 million tons. The total resource was estimated at 2000 million tons, grading 0.6kg/ton U3O8, 3.5g/tonne silver, 0.6g/tonne gold, and 1.6% copper (22).
There are also associated rare earths, and areas with significant uranium but lower copper values (22). Both ore types were to be blended and treated in the same plant. The first year's production was likely to yield 30,000 tons of copper and 90,000 ounces of gold, in addition to the uranium; copper output increasing as uranium grades declined in the early 1990s (86). By the time the project came on-stream, it was estimated it would cost at least A$800 million - a huge investment for such a chancy proposition, notwithstanding early predictions about the mine's potential: according to one source, the deposit "contained enough uranium to fuel the entire world at today's consumption rates for forty years" (87).
Olympic Dam's discovery in 1975 was considered a "triumph" for WMC geologists, because the deposit is completely "blind", lying under 350 metres of rock and extending over about 20 square kilometres (86). It was not until ten diamond drill holes had been sunk that uranium was discovered associated with the copper - at up to 2.43 lb/tonne (88, 89). By 1979, it was clear that a major new mineral lode had been found in an area which, if superimposed, would cover the city of Adelaide. (And the companies took pleasure in showing just that, in their glossy publication on the project) (89). In 1978, Exxon was said to be interested in buying into Roxby (90). But in July, WMC asked BP Australia to raise the finance necessary to complete the final feasibility study: the British company's commitment was A$50 million for evaluation and feasibility work, and to "advance further loans prior to any commitment to proceed with construction". Thereafter, BP would "assist in arranging development loans" (89).
At the end of 1979, further mineralisation was reported at the site (91), although the full extent of the deposit was still not clear (92, 93). Parbo predicted that the discovery could spark off an exploration boom that would make South Australia look like Western Australia, and that more uranium was likely to be in the pipeline (91) . The WMC/BP JV was also exploring outside the Olympic Dam area (92, 94), spending A$10 million doing so (95).
Early in 1980, drilling at Stuart Shelf, some 25km outside the Olympic Dam lease, intersected copper and uranium with lower (but nonetheless significant) grades than at Roxby (96): results by May 1980 had intersected copper grading up to 3.04% and uranium up to 1kg/tonne (97). BP controlled finance for this JV, known as the Olympic Dam-Stuart Shelf JV (98). 1981 saw the establishment of a field camp accommodating about 200 people on the Roxby site, and work on a 500 metres deep exploration shaft (95). By then, Roxby was being rated "the most significant mineral discovery in Australia since the discovery of Northern Territory uranium" (99). But it was not until 1982, with the completion of the exploration phase (100) and the signing of the Olympic Dam Agreement, that the full extent of the deposit was revealed. The Agreement, predicated on a highly controversial Indenture Bill (fuller details of which are given below) committed the two companies to spending not less A$50 million by the end of 1984 to continue active exploration at Stuart Shelf, and to provide the Roxby Downs area with power, water, and general township development, while the South Australian government would meet educational, social and welfare requirements to the tune of another A$50 million (101).
The revelations about the true extent of Roxby were tucked away in WMC's quarterly report for the second quarter of 1982: 2000 million tonnes of ore grading 1.6% copper, 0.6kg/tonne U308, and 0.6g/tonne of gold (46). This resource - "breathtaking by any standards" was the Financial Times comment (46) - could quadruple current Australian uranium reserves (46). At an annual production of 3000 tonnes U3O8, 130,000 tonnes copper, 3400kg gold and 23,000kg silver (102), possible yield would be 32 million tons of copper, 1.2 million tons U308, and 1200 tons gold over the mine's lifetime (103). However, the companies agreed that metal grades were relatively low, and the deposit would have to be worked "on a huge scale": production costs were then optimistically estimated at A$ 1.4 billion for an annual return of between A$442 million and A$658 million (102).
The Indenture Bill received the assent of the South Australian Governor-in-Council in June 1982, requiring the partners to finish their feasibility study no later than December 1984 (103, 104).
As the 1984 deadline approached, it was clear that WMC and BP would not keep within their original cost or time limits. Engineering studies were only 40% completed by December 1984, and feasibility costs had risen threefold to A$150 million (105). In view of this, WMC agreed to provide 51 % of the share of funds required, in excess of A$71.5 million (106) - ie around A$40 million (105). Meanwhile, BP would ensure funds were made available for mine development and associated facilities, up to a production capacity of 150,000 tons/year copper (106). At the same time, Arvi Parbo announced a very slimmed-down project, the initial cost for which (he declared) would be "considerably less than the A$1.3 billion estimated in the Environmental Impact Statement" (105): the decision was put down to escalating capital costs, high interest rates and current low metal prices (107). Parbo said full-scale production would have to be reached in stages (107), while uranium capacity would also be "staged" (105). At this point Fluor Australia was appointed to conduct technical studies on capital and operating costs, and a 110km road was built north of the deposit to a borefield near the southern boundary of the Great Artesian Basin (105): more of this development later!
At the end of 1984, WMC announced that the first stage of the mine would operate at around one-third of planned eventual capacity and that some ore would be "high-graded" (108). As the go-ahead for the mine was given at the Australian Labor Party (ALP) national conference that year, Parbo predicted a 1988 start-up, particularly because the uranium market would only allow "relatively small amounts and only on a short-term contract basis": Parbo expected a better market in four years time (109).
A year passed before the partners announced the "final go- ahead", much to the delight of the Bannon government, just as Labor won a landslide victory.in the polls (110), but as uranium and copper pricing talks with the government failed. By then the state government had committed itself to providing about A$13 million public funds for infrastructure and services (hospital, school, library, child care facilities and a sports centre) (111, 132).
By then, too, the "final" feasibility study was "finally" completed (though the term "final" has achieved a new elasticity of meaning during the Roxby extravaganza). The start-up date was fixed for mid-1987 (British mining sources erroneously said mid-1986) (112), at production rates which will probably not now be reached until well into the 1990s. The cost was set at A$550 million (113, 198) - though this too was an elastic variable, as the next year was to prove. During 1985, 992 metres of underground development was completed, with 14,500 metres of surface and underground drilling and evaluation work (114).
Yet another "final" date was reached the following year, when the South Australian government okayed detailed plans for the mine, mill, smelter and copper refinery: this latter plant costing an additional A$40 million. Total investment costs were now being put at A$800 million, and for the first time a start-up date in 1988 was projected (115). The major construction, engineering and procurement work for Phase One of Roxby was put firmly in the hands of Fluor, as it gained a second lucrative contract (worth US$200 million, out of a total budget for this phase of US$340 million) (116) . The Olympic "hype" gathered momentum during 1986, as new projections were made that output might reach treble the design rates set in 1985 (117). A contract to build an acid plant was awarded to a subsidiary of Simon Engineering plc of Stockport UK (118).
The service decline was completed in July 1987 (86), and in early 1988 there seemed no reason why commercial production should not begin as scheduled (119).
... in Roxby Downs now seems confirmed. This was not always the case and there is little doubt that WMC needed its British partner far more than the other way round - at least until the British Civil Uranium Procurement Organisation [Directorate] (BCUPO) realised that its Rossing resources would be run down (for political reasons), and Roxby was a feasible proposition (120). Indeed, as late as 1984, while costs escalated, BP - which lost A$ 137 million in Australia between 1982 and 1984 - was rumoured to be having second thoughts, possibly looking for a utility to buy some of its equity stake (121), seeking a partner to spread the costs (107) or getting out altogether (122). "We stick by the joint venture", a BP spokesperson was quoted as saying in November 1984, "but if the economics turn out to be marginal, we are likely to view the project in different terms from Western Mining, since our costs will be different". WMC rejoined that, in order to change the JV agreement, "BP would have to offer something very attractive in return" (121). By 1988, the partners seemed to have weathered the economic storm: but the triumph was clearly WMC's. As the Financial Times commented, BP was needed not only for the cash it provided to complete the feasibility studies, but as a guarantee against further borrowing by the Australian partner. In effect, "BP agreed to bankroll the world's biggest mine" (121).
BP's Role ... have for ten years been bones of contention; between the partners and the federal government; between South Australian taxpayers and the partners and government. Once the Indenture Bill was passed, the main economic contention between WMC/BP and the federal government concerned the federally fixed floor price which the partners, quite naturally, feared they could not meet if they were to cover their costs. By mid-1986, this issue seems to have been resolved, when the federal Minister of Trade agreed that Roxby contracts could average A$31 per kilogram over the period of the contract, rather than that all sales "should meet or exceed the floor price" (123). "Special consideration" would also be given to early contracts which might have to be priced above the floor level (123).
Roxby's Economics The overall costs of the project to the taxpayer and community at large have been a very different matter. It is important to keep on pointing out that, from the very start, the mine's viability has depended on firm uranium contracts concluded in a rising market (124). If copper was the main profit-earner at Roxby, WMC had other more lucrative resources to tap - as opponents pointed out in the early days (37). A study carried out by the Centre of Policy Studies at Monash University, Victoria, in 1982, also confirmed that copper, gold and uranium would have to be mined together (125). Yet the market price of uranium would have to reach almost unprecedented heights (one analyst reckoned A$55 per kilogram) to justify the project at copper prices prevalent through much of the last ten years (126). For such a huge venture to be host to the erratic fortunes of one of the most volatile of commodities - uranium - even before Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, seemed foolhardy: in ten years time it might seem criminal folly.
Roxby has certainly done well out of taxpayers' funds. The South Australian government not only contributed an initial A$50 million for infrastructure, but will pay A$10 million a year on interest charges and maintenance (122). At least half the partners' expenditure has also been a tax deduction, at the taxpayers' expense, since all the companies' exploration expenses were directly deductible from a 47.5% tax on their profits from other ventures (130). Initially a royalty return of 10% was widely canvassed (127), with claims that this could bring in to the government as much as A$70 million a year. In the end, the rate was set at 2.5% for the first five years, and 3.5% in subsequent years, with a surplus-related royalty under certain conditions (101). The basic rate certainly represented a net loss to the state at 1984 prices (122). But, even if market prices were to double, there would likely be no gain to the government (122). The Town and Country Planning Association of South Australia, on scrutinising the royalties section of the Indenture Act, concluded it provided a means "by which Roxby Downs partners could avoid paying royalties altogether": by maintaining capacity at less than 85% for 60 consecutive days (128).
Another initial bounty, in the form of enhanced employment, has also been an expensive illusion. The 1982 Environmental Impact Statement estimated that 2430 direct jobs and 57008300 indirect jobs would be created by the project (earlier predictions by the then-Premier of South Australia, Mr Tomkin, were 5000 direct jobs and no fewer than 50,000 to 60,000 indirect ones) (122, 129). The 1982 employment figure represents A$560,000 for each job directly created (130). Little wonder that critics have pointed out the far more beneficial ways in which such expenditure could be deployed: 50,000 job-places making solar collectors and wind generators, according to CANE (131); "ten times as many jobs" in other South Australian industry, claimed Democratic Member, Mr Gilfillan, referring simply to the A$13 million needed for infrastructure (132).
... is no stranger to Roxby - declared by FoE USA in 1984 to be "the most controversial political issue in Australia" (133). In the Australian Labor Party (ALP), revival of anti-uranium activity, which fell off after permission was given for the Ranger project, was almost wholly due to Roxby (134), though pressure by Arvi Parbo certainly made a mark (134). Despite a solid ALP line against the opening of new mines, a loophole was provided, with the clause that uranium could be extracted "incidental" to other minerals (135). This was known, appropriately, as the "Roxby Amendment" (Clause 64c) (136). When the Indenture Bill came up for debate in the South Australian Parliament in 1982, some ALP members argued that the uranium could be mined and processed, but would have to be treated as waste and returned to the mine as backfill (104). Once the South Australian parliament had given the go-ahead, it was only a matter of time before the ALP leadership, subservient to pragmatism and the Mighty Dollar, would also succumb to a major reversal of its previous anti-nuclear stance. In November 1983 the cabinet approved the mine (137); shortly afterwards the ALP caucus fell into line (138). At the meeting which gave the final go-ahead to Roxby, two new contracts were allowed for Ranger and Nabarlek, and the only concession to the left wing was the promise of an inquiry into safeguards policy. Calls for a Public Inquiry into Roxby itself were rejected by two ALP leaders who had recently supported such a move: the new Premier, John Bannon, and the supposedly left-wing anti-uranium politician Peter Duncan (138).
Political Controversy The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), though itself split on the issue of uranium, put up a slightly more spirited fight. In 1981/82 under the threat of massive fines and "deregulation" for implementing a ban on Ranger and Nabarlek exports, and despite international pleas, the ACTU temporarily lifted its blockade on the port of Darwin. The Australian Teachers' Federation, the BWIU (Building Workers Industrial Union), and the ATEA (Australian Telecommunications Employees' Association) - among others - argued that the ban should continue (129). Two weeks after the ALP caucus dealt a blow both to the anti-nuclear movement and its own integrity in November 1983, the president of the ACTU, Cliff Dolan, was promising that the Council would organise a blockade against Roxby. However, the Unions best in a position to implement such action - the Transport Workers' Federation, Waterside Workers' Federation and the Seamen's Union - were more cautious, while the Australian Workers' Union (AWU), with 300 members already preparing the Roxby site, was naturally downright antagonistic (139).
The Roxby Downs (Indenture Ratification) Act 1982 was passed in June 1982, after one of those events which, for some, epitomise the exercise of free will under a democracy, and, for others, serve to undermine the parliamentary process. When the Bill was first presented, it was defeated by one vote (140). Shortly afterwards, ALP member Norman Foster - an acknowledged supporter of Roxby - resigned from the party. The SA Attorney-General ruled that the Bill could be re-submitted under a little-used standing order (141). Norman Foster then crossed the floor of the Upper House to vote with the Liberal government. In so doing, he salvaged the project (142).
The Indenture legislation was necessary not for mining, so much as infrastructure (143). For the partners it minimised the "considerable risk" attached to developing such a huge resource (142); for the government it provided "insulation ... from any transfer pricing deals"; for both parties it supposedly represented a "better rate of return than would be provided under the provisions of the Mining Act" (144) . The Roxby Act was no less than 320 pages long, encompassing some 57 individual clauses (145).
Although the Liberal government came to power in 1979 with a strong commitment to develop Roxby (146), it was the partners which pressed for the Indenture, which insisted that the project could not go ahead without mining and processing of uranium, which lobbied long and hard on the more controversial draft clauses, concerning low-cost water and power supplies (146), and which gained security against further executive action for the project "more comprehensive than ... in any previous State agreement in Australia" (146). The partners also gained (exceptionally) a 50-year mining lease, and exclusive rights of entry to and occupation of their leased lands - "a right of exclusive possession as well as an exclusive right to mine" (146).
... posed to people's health (workers and residents), and the environment, were supposedly dealt with by the terms of the Indenture agreement. Five standards of practice - known as the "Code of Practice on Radiation Protection in the Mining and Milling of Radioactive Ores 1980" - were incorporated into the Act, based on a clause in the Yeelirrie Agreement (146). The partners also pledged to observe principles set out by the ICRP (International Commission on Radiological Protection). But the ICRP is the body which coined the concept of ALARA (keeping radiation levels "as low as reasonably achievable"), a standard which is virtually meaningless in practice. Under sub-clause 4 of the agreement, the partners are protected from "discrimination" by future more stringent state legislation (146). In 1986, the SA Ministry of Health took steps to bring Roxby operations under the Radiological Protection Act, and possibly enact new occupational safety legislation which could be extended to mining. This rung alarm bells throughout the corridors of WMC and BP, who ran (WMC) and walked (BP) to their friends in government, in an attempt to pre-empt the moves. According to BP documents leaked later, the Ministry of Mines promised support for the status quo, while - understandably - the Minister of Health, Dr Cornwall, did not: he declared that standards at Roxby "are and will be inadequate and constitute a health risk" (123).
The Dangers Cornwall - who has publicly advocated setting maximum exposure for miners at Roxby at one quarter the level set in the Code of Practice (147) - was quoted by BP as saying he did not "want on his shoulders the forty extra cancer deaths" likely to be caused by the project (123). Revealingly - in anticipation of a heated debate between the SA Mines and Health ministers over Roxby's exception from more stringent standards - BP's trouble-shooter stated his opinion in the documents that BP should "... be active in community sponsorships etc, in and around Adelaide, in order to ensure community acceptance of BP, if the uranium debate heats up in that state" (123). Typically, this huge multinational (which thinks nothing of spending L1,000,000 on producing one TV advertisement) would be financing public deception, rather than public protection.
The Campaign Against Nuclear Energy (CANE), in a concise critique of radiation safety procedures at Roxby, as laid down in the draft Environmental Impact Statement, pointed out that: much of the risk assessment had been based on incremental exposure, without proper assessment of background levels; no account had been taken of the toxicity and carcinogenicity of solvents used in extraction; and no allowance had been made for abnormally high radio-toxicity of ammonium diuranate (compared to U3O8) in body fluids (148).
Although the partners' plans (or lack of them) for tailings retention and neutralisation has been the subject of some public concern (notably by FoE and CANE), it is probably their scheme to consume enormous volumes of water which so far has raised most disquiet among environmentalists. The Indenture agreement laid down some highly complex requirements, apparently to prevent the project exhausting irreplaceable resources necessary to farming and public water supplies (including Aboriginal users). Two points stand out: the fact that there would be no charge for underground, surface run-off, or recycled water; and the selection of an "undesignated area" where the partners would not reduce underground water pressure by more than 5 metres at the boundary, over a thirty-year period: any changes to this or emergency measures taken by the state could be stalled by the partners referring the matter to arbitration (146).
Roxby's water supplies come from a well field 110 kilometres north-east of the mine, fed by the Great Artesian Basin (149). Although the original plan was to consume up to 33 megalitres (million litres) of water per day from this source (136), the trimmed-down mine is intended to take just under half this amount: 4 megalitres/day desalinated for use by the town and mine-site, with 5 megalitres/day for processing (149). This will certainly lessen the impact of the mine on the environment - there were early fears that many species of animal and plant life would disappear, as the region became dehydrated (136), that numerous bore-holes would dry up and there would be "devastating repercussions on the rural community" (150). Nonetheless, the fears are far from unfounded, especially if the mine, by any chance, should expand within the next thirty years. Finniss Springs comprises part of the Mound Springs, in the Great Artesian Basin, and supplies water to Aboriginal people at Finniss Station. In Spring 1987, a monitoring bore at the station (Goffe Springs) was either badly sunk, or blew out of its casing, causing a bog 60 metres across and rendering the watering-point useless for stock (151). Belatedly the Roxby partners offered pumped water, but this was considered inadequate (152).
... are, as usual, at the sharp end of the Roxby project. The Kokotha people who have been the most vocal in their claims for land trespassed upon by the partners, were - along with Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara, and other Aboriginal peoples - brutally removed from the region of the mine in the 1950s as the British tested nuclear weapons, and missiles (at Woomera) (153). Due to their dispersal, they did not wake up to the dangers posed by the project until three or four years after the first test drilling (154). By 1981, the Kokotha, and the newly-formed Southern Lands Council (SLC), had already identified several major sacred aboriginal sites, which were damaged by Roxby Management Services (RMS) (155). Attempts at negotiation between the SLC, the Kokotha People's Committee (KPC) and the Roxby partners, proved abortive (37), and the SLC called for a moratorium until an independent anthropologist had been able to make a proper assessment of the sites (155).
Aboriginal People Arvi Parbo's response was frankly dismissive: the pending Indenture Bill would not, he believed, contain special provisions for Aborigines, and in any case WMC "did not deal directly with the Aborigines" (155).
BP's public attitude was contradictory, if somewhat less combative. The British company claimed that "ever since 1981" RMS had made "repeated efforts" to "secure the co-operation of the people representing the Kokotha aboriginal community in surveys to local sites of anthropological significance", but failed to do so: consequently, "the anthropological section of the Environmental Impact Statement" (EIS) had to be based on "studies conducted and published prior to the discovery of mineralisation at Olympic Dam" (156).
The truth of the matter is that the KPC has certainly refused to condone the methodology and operations of the RMS-appointed female anthropologist, who could not legitimately investigate male sacred sites; no funding for their own survey was available until 1983 (157). Equally important, WMC clearly had no intention, from the start, of allowing land claims to interfere in its plans: the Indenture Act left Aboriginal communities effectively without protection; and the final EIS was totally inadequate in identifying the sites as a result. This was the inadequacy recognised by the SA government itself in 1983 (158).
In a meeting held on July 28 1980, the South Australian cabinet had before it a recommendation from the Department of the Environment that - among other matters - an ethnographic survey should be undertaken "as soon as possible" to "determine the extent and significance of traditional Kukata [sic] interest in the [site] area" while sites outside the shaft area should be protected "until detailed surveys can undertaken" (159). The Minister of Mines argued that the latter recommendation should not be contingent on approval for the Whenan shaft, while pointing out that the recommendation for an ethnographic survey was the subject of "a specific policy decision by the Premier" then Tonkin (159).
The Cabinet apparently advised the Premier to write to WMC on this matter (160). Tonkin did so - assuring Hugh Morgan that, further to a previous letter of December 18 1979, the Government would not "permit security of tenure to [the areas required for an exploration shaft and construction of ancillary site facilities] to be further jeopardised by any land rights or other claims". Importantly, this assurance was then "extended to include adjacent lands which might be required for further project development" (161).
When these documents were published by CANE - and released to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) - WMC responded with the customary batch of suits for libel, slander and defamation (162). ABC lost its suit against the corporation because of bad legal advice (163), but WMC withdrew all charges against CANE. While CANE could not prove its case, WMC certainly could not prove theirs! In any case, events from 1981 onwards were to demonstrate that, whether or not a secret sellout of the Kokotha people was rigged between the SA Premier and WMC, both parties acted as if these land claims did not matter.
The Indenture Act, in some speciously tortuous argumentation, applied the protective Aboriginal Heritage Act to the Olympic Dam and Stuart Shelf areas. Unfortunately, although four years old, this Act had never been proclaimed in South Australia. The Joint Venturers were therefore (according to lawyer Garry Hiskey) allowed by some "deceptively short but nevertheless quite labyrinthine drafting" of the Indenture Act, to choose which form of the Act might be applied to their project (if and when it was finally enforced). This extraordinary provision enabled them to oppose any land claims or site protection, once the government had committed itself to the project, and an EIS was approved (146).
When the EIS was finally submitted, the 1979 Aboriginal Heritage Act had not been proclaimed (157), the Aboriginal sites already identified by the KPC were not incorporated into the EIS, because the KPC had not been given the opportunity of funding to survey them properly, and provision in the final EIS which mandated the partners to liase with the KPC and other Aboriginal groups was rendered pointless, because the Department of Environment and Planning had not been able to assess which areas needed protection. It had not been able to do so, because the Kokotha had not had the opportunity to carry out their survey, and the KPC had not been able to carry out their survey because of lack of co-operation from the mining companies - indeed an attitude of arrogance which, by then, had already led to major violations of Aboriginal land. The KPC obtained funding to employ its own anthropologists only in Spring 1983, after the SA government finally recognised the inadequacies of the EIS (and the fact that the social consequences of the mine, on the Kokotha and other Aboriginal people, had been completely neglected (164).
This A$28,000 study was carried out by a wellknown Melbourne anthropologist, Rod Hagen, and his findings were later confirmed by Professor Berndt (165). Hagen warned that between 40 and 50 sites were in the project region, more than 30 of which were in danger from excavation: there was no question they were sacred, and little question that the mining companies had been derelict in their treatment of the Aboriginal claims (166).
By the time the report was ready, however, the partners had done some of their worst - ten out of fifty of the sites identified by Hagen were to be devastated over this period (167), despite desperate attempts by Aboriginal men to prevent bulldozing. It was at this stage that the KPC changed its tactics, expressing their willingness to join with non-Aboriginal environmental and anti-nuclear groups in taking on the SA government, WMC and BP. They demanded land rights in South Australia, immediate legislation to protect all sacred sites in the vicinity of Roxby, and all work on one of the most threatening developments - the water pipeline - to cease until alternative routes were found (168). A statement issued by the National Federation of Aboriginal Land Councils, at its annual meeting held in July, pledged full support for the Kokotha, and announced an Aboriginal occupation of the threatened area. "At least forty other sacred sites are threatened ... we feel this is an appalling betrayal of the Kokotha by the South Australian government" (169).
As the Aboriginal occupation became a reality, so the so-called "Battle of Cane Swamp" began, Cane Grass being the sacred dreaming of the Karlta (lizard) found at the end of a 55kilometre track constructed by the partners to link the mine with the springs to the north of the site (170). Forty Aboriginal people set up an outstation at Cane Grass in early August 1983, and plotted an alternative route for the pipeline (171). The government's response was to deny the companies any financial compensation for an alternative route, while the partners claimed the alternative would be "damaging" [sic.], difficult and costly: Roxby's project manager, John Copping, called the KPA's campaign "inconsistent and irrational" (172).
Meeting a few days later, after abortive discussions with Copping, the KPC demanded that Hugh Morgan himself should come to the site (173). RMS and WMC never even bothered to respond (174). Nor did state or federal representatives come to a major meeting at the Swamp, convened on August 18 by the KPC with delegates from the National Federation of Land Councils and Aboriginal supporters from Adelaide. The meeting "thanked the Company for giving the Kokotha elders an opportunity for getting together on this scale ... the first such meeting since the 1940s, when the Kokotha people were virtually made refugees in their own country". The camp was then declared a permanent outstation, with the prospect of medical and educational facilities from Aboriginal organisations (175).
By this time, John Copping (one of WMC's representatives who had met with Premier Tonkin just before he promised the company it needn't worry about Aboriginal claims on Roxby) (161), was suggesting the Kokotha sacred sites had been "invented" (175). This was no doubt a publicity gambit by the partners, putting up a few tribal elders at the end of the month who were prepared to declare that no sacred sited would be violated by the proposed pipeline (176). Naturally this media event was played to the full by both WMC and BP (156), although, three years later, when the South Australian government set up a committee with representatives of both groups to consider the land claims case, BP seemed to have modified its partisan stance. In the BP secret documents (already quoted) the company's Aboriginal "strategy development" person, Bob Ritchie. commented that the company's approach "... has not been to bring the matter to a head but to be mindful of the issue in our dealings with State and Federal Governments" (123).
WMC's involvement in this transparent attempt to divide and rule the Kokotha is much more murky. At a meeting of one hundred Kokotha, Arabuna, Pitjantjatjara and Yankandura people at the Swamp in October 1983, it was unanimously affirmed that the area was traditional Kokotha land, but that "attempts to manipulate the old [Arabuna] men in Coober Pedy ... had caused very serious concern" (177). These "dissident" elders had not only set up an association - the Yankandaraku - very similar in name to the Yankandaraku Council, which completely supported the KPC, but were advised by a Mr Bannon, who was both an employee of the new Association, and a consultant for WMC (178).
The Cane Grass saga ended with the pipeline being re-routed: it showed that the Kokotha, despite privations, pressures and isolation, had been able to revive their community- and publicise its struggles successfully overseas. Joan Wingfield, as a representative of the KPC, visited Europe in early 1988, attended the BP annual general meeting, and spoke with numerous groups.) However, so long as Roxby Downs is a viable mining project, the basic human rights of all Kokotha people are daily violated: the outlook cannot be said to be a very hopeful one.
... to the Roxby Downs project has been more concerted than that against any other single uranium mine, with the exception of Ranger and Rossing. After its 1977 annual general meeting, when anti-uranium (primarily anti-Yeelirrie) demonstrators threw streamers over directors, blew whistles, waved banners, and forced adjournments "to restore order" (179), the company put resolutions to change its articles of association (180). These enabled the chair to halt all discussions, and arbitrarily adjourn the meeting - the company could also refuse to register lots of fewer than 100 shares, thus excluding the "single share" dissident who has become a characteristic attender of the meeting of several corporations in recent years: notably EZ in Australia; Shell in the Netherlands; Barclays Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Charter Consolidated, GEC, BP, and above all - RTZ in Britain. The change was opposed by the Australian Shareholders Association which, while it did not agree with many dissident tactics, "did not believe that curtailing shareholders' rights at an annual general meeting is the correct way to handle the problem" (181). The changes were, however, approved (182), amid uproar as anti-uranium campaigners and an Aboriginal spokesperson argued against WMC's mining projects and their deleterious effect on Aboriginal people (67).
Opposition The first major direct action - apart from the Cane Grass Aboriginal outstation - against Roxby took place in mid-1983, after the Coalition for a Nuclear Free Australia (CNFA) chose the mine as a main focus (183), and called for a blockade. Five hundred or more people then mounted a week's intense action, during which they were met with some brutality from miners and police (207), but managed to occupy parts of the mine-site itself (184). More than two hundred people were arrested (185). In London, a huge lizard, accompanied by antinuclear demonstrators, took over a BP filling station in solidarity with the blockaders (184), while others later invaded the Australian High Commission in London and staged a sit-in (186). Protestors occupying the roadway to a US airforce base at Bitburg, West Germany, also sent the Roxby blockaders a message of solidarity: "... we know that uranium mining contributes to and makes possible an increasing number of nuclear weapons ... many ... based in our country ... Your fight ... in Australia is, therefore, the best contribution to the international peace movement and our fight for nuclear disarmament" (187).
Later that year, the CNFA decided to mount another blockade, in the wake of the ALP caucus betrayal of the party's anti-uranium policy. This time it would be a "rolling blockade", with no predetermined conclusion (188), designed to prevent the feasibility study being completed by December 1984 (189). Meanwhile, a vigil had been maintained outside the mine-site, which by early 1984 had been visited by one-third of the workers at the mine: they reported numerous instances of safety violations (190).
In another action, CANE members in Adelaide - alerted by the vigil to the departure of ore shipments from Roxby - mobilised at the port terminal, succeeded in halting two truckloads, and identified a leaky container: eighteen people were arrested (191).
The 1984 blockade had to contend with an imposed buffer zone - in which demonstrators were liable to arrest for trespass - but this, if anything, prompted more direct action, and a greater readiness to use civil disobedience than in 1983. In one such action, numerous locks at the Whenan shaft were super-glued, graffiti spread liberally, with the "perpetrators" escaping arrest (192). Hundreds of metres of boundary fencing were also cut (190). In one of the more imaginative actions, ten women with blackened faces and black clothes stuffed a six foot tampon down the Whenan shaft, leaving it adorned with messages like "Womyn know about hidden blood - plug the shaft - stop the cycle" and "Raping the earth earns you sterility" (194).
Out of the eight hundred participants in the '84 blockade, more than 230 were arrested in the first three weeks (195) - almost certainly the greatest number of people ever arrested for a single action at a uranium mine, except during 1985-1988 at Vaal Reefs, South Africa (see AAC).
Solidarity actions carried out by British women continued through 1985 and 1987, particularly aimed at BP (196).
The South Australian Uranium Information Fund appointed a Uranium Information Coordinator in 1987, to monitor mining at Roxby and any accidents or breaches of regulations (152).
... for sufficient uranium to justify the (albeit severely modified) design production of 2000 tons a year, looked dim in 1988; and as late as 1987, there were doubts that Roxby would come on stream in time (197). By then, the company claimed it had concluded deals with Sweden, Britain, South Korea and Japan (22) "the company" technically being Olympic Dam Marketing Pty Ltd, set up in 1985 (198) after official approval for export had been granted. (In fact the first ore known to be exported from the mine went to Finland's Outokumpu Oy for testing in 1984, although the company had no export licence at the time (199, 200).
Contracts The first contracts were with Sweden, concluded in early 1986, though there seemed some doubt about their exact extent and timing. An early report stated that the Swedes would take 900 tonnes from 1991 (201), and another that 2500 tonnes would be supplied over an unspecified period (149). It was later stated that only 300 tonnes per year would be going northwards, over a ten-year period (202). In early 1987, the British CEGB was reported to have reached a "tentative deal" with the Roxby partners for an unspecified supply from Roxby, and to be seeking a second contract "with one of Australia's two other uranium producers" (203). Although this projected deal followed the major orders given by the CEGB to Energy Fuels and another Texan uranium mine, it closely followed the cessation of supplies to Britain from Rossing. Later information from the British Civil Uranium Procurement Directorate (or Organisation) (BCUPO) established that the Roxby contract was for 2500 tonnes U3O8 over an "unspecified period", though probably for ten years from early 1989 (149): somewhat more than contracted from the Texas producers in late 1985 (203).
It is not known what the South Korean or Japanese contracts involve. In late 1985, it was reported that Japan had decided to contract with Canadian rather than Australian producers (110), although this announcement followed an agreement between the Roxby partners and the Japanese company Kanematsu Goshu Ltd, that Kanematsu would be the sole Japanese sales agent from 1989 onwards for Roxby output (204), and Arvi Parbo was expressing confidence that the Japanese would take up to 30% of the mine's uranium output (199, 201). Latest figures reveal that Japan's natural uranium supply requirements from 1987 to 1996 are to be met 22% (12,000 tonnes) from Australia, with a similar percentage deriving from Canada, and slightly more (25%) from Namibia, while Niger, South Africa, France and the USA make up the rest - in descending order (205).
The copper from Roxby is intended to be supplied 20% each to BICC plc (UK); Huettenwerke Kapen AG (W Germany); Nordeutsche Affinerie (also Germany) - a subsidiary of RTZ; SGM Int SA (Belgium); with 20% remaining in Australia (149).
The question of uranium supplies from Roxby to Taiwan has been fraught with political difficulty, since Taiwan is not officially recognised by the Australian government, and no nuclear safeguard agreements exist between the two countries. In late 1987, BP denied that a "third purchaser" of Roxby uranium was Taiwan (206). The internal BP documents, leaked in late 1986, show that Taipower had provided a letter of intent to Olympic Dam Marketing, "indicating its wish to purchase from ODM 5000 tonnes of uranium oxide over a period of 10- 15 years from about 1990" - a sale worth up to A$50 million, which would be "important to Olympic Dam, both in itself and as a positive indication of progress in sales to Asian countries" (123). However, Australian politicians had not shown themselves willing to rock the boat on sales to Taiwan, and concluded "... the issue is not one which we should push" (123). On the other hand, the company expected to find an intermediary for sales to Taiwan and "a proposal on how we intend proceeding with this customer is awaiting approval by the federal government" (123).
France is certainly being pursued by the Roxby partners - although for two years, from 1984 to 1986, a ban was supposedly in operation on uranium sales to the European nuclear power, for its continued nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific: the ban was lifted in 1986, and ERA made its first uranium sale to France in January 1988 (13, 119). In the BP confidential documents already quoted, it is stated that the partners had applied to the federal government for permission to add Electricite de France (see Cogema) to the list of companies with whom it can complete contracts (123). Although supposedly opposing federal uranium deals, Premier Bannon had demonstrated his close friendship for WMC and BP, by (according to BP) publicly stating he will not oppose uranium coming specifically from Roxby. Bannon also "rejected calls to amend the Indenture to block such sales" (123).
Between 1988 and 1991, Western Mining recovered its fortunes in nickel mining, after an almost disastrous slump in early 1990 (208). This was largely due to output from its Leinster mine (formerly the Agnew mine) in WA. By mid-1991, WMC had confirmed its position as the western world's third largest nickel producer, with eleven operating mines (209). Moreover, after a protracted - and bitter battle - for ownership of ACM (with its Mount Keith nickel deposit), WMC and Normandy Poseidon finally wrested management control of the junior Australian mining company from Outokumpu in late 1991 (210). With the acquisition of almost half (48.3%) of Alcoa Australia by 1990, the company "surge[d] past Comalco" to become the country's biggest integrated aluminium producer (211).
The Roxby Downs mine (WMC and the industry stubbornly continued to call it Olympic Dam) was officially opened by South Australian Premier, John Bannon, on November 5th, 1988 (212). Nor were the fireworks long in coming! Within a year, Greenpeace Australia and other conservation groups, along with the Arabana people, were accusing the Roxby partners of allowing unauthorised discharges of run-off water, which were a danger to the health and safety of the people (213). Fine sand was blocking water pumps causing the flooding of Arabana land, and a profligate use of water from the mound springs further confirmed early fears that these would be permanently damaged or dehydrated (214).
But the biggest debate was around the South Australian government's refusal to release reports by its own Health Commission, from 1982, which seemed to suggest that radiation exposure at the mine might lead to the deaths of nearly 20% of the workforce, from lung cancer (170 in 1,000) (215). Although a later report largely discounted these risks, WMC's own monitoring information was still under wraps (215).
It took the resignation of Dr Dennis Matthews (a chemistry lecturer), from the South Australian Radiation Protection Authority, for the situation to change. Citing the Gardner report on the Windscale/Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in England (see BNFL), Dr Matthew's protest centred on the fact that the upper limit for annual radiation exposure, apparently permitted at Roxby, was 50 millisieverts (mSv) a year, while both Britain and the USA had wanted it dropped to 15 mSv a year (217). Although the South Australian government later agreed to release the Roxby Downs monitoring reports, and not continue to hide behind the secret provisions of the Indenture Agreement - a move which was generally welcomed (218) Dennis Matthew criticised the type of data which was now being offered:
"It's still not complete information. For example, the data given on the metallurgical plant employees [where] there are various sections. Workers in different sections are faced with different risks. Those who work on the [copper] smelters are a very high risk group, and others are very low, yet they're all lumped together, so you don't see [the difference].
They operate on the current 50mSv per annum basis and some of their workers have had 30mSv in the last 12 months...
"If men get 100 mSv . .. their children are likely to get a sevenfold increase in leukaemia [and] we ought to make sure they get considerably less .... Let's say we restrict the total dose to 20 mSv over a working life. If you take that as 20 years - it's usually 30 - but let's say 20, that's 1 mSv per year. In other words, it's just like [the standard] for the general public. One millisievert compared with the current fifty would put a lot of pressure on the whole nuclear industry, not just at places like Roxby Downs, but also the rare earths facility they're proposing at Port Pirie; x-ray radiography; people using neutron sources in industry and so on. It puts a whole new complexion on things" (219).
Shortly after the radiation controversy died down, WMC announced the signing of two new US uranium contracts - with Texas Utilities and Middle South of Mississippi - for the supply of around 300 tonnes per year of yellowcake over the following six or seven years (208). Predicting "little unsold capacity by 1992/93", the company's marketing manager looked forward to the second stage of the mine, adding: "From its inception the uranium sales always underpinned the mine development, so if we are able to secure further contracts this will accelerate stage II" (220). Less than a year later, WMC announced a A$56M expansion of Roxby to boost copper production by more than 20% and, increase uranium output from 1200 to 1400 tonnes (221).
Meanwhile, anti-uranium demonstrators blockaded the path of 24 ore-carrying trailers at Port Adelaide, providing yellowcake (ultimately) to Sweden, Britain and the USA via Rotterdam: three shipments of Roxby output, made in 1990, were subject to this vigorous direct action (222).
In Fiji, WMC was having worse problems over operations at the Emperor Gold mine at Vatukoula, in northern Viti Levu. WMC had sold its majority stake in the mine to Emperor Gold Mines, a company set up in the tax haven of the Isle of Man; initially retaining 20% of the JV (223) and later selling another 10%. Although it said in 1991 that it would offload the whole of its interest (224), WMC has retained management control of the mine. (It also holds onto the Nasomo gold field in Viti Levu, together with Emperor Gold Mines as an equal partner) (225).
It is this management control which has brought WMC into the bitterest confrontation with "its" workforce, in recent years.
According to a report made by the Fiji Trade Union Congress, in early 1990, workers at the mine were: denied statutory pay; oppressed if they tried to join the independent Fiji National Union of Mineworkers (NUM); forced to live in appalling housing conditions (up to 16 in a squalid two-roomed shack); subject to racial discrimination; and handed a derisory F$1.16 per hour in pay (226) - and in particular refusal by WMC to recognise the Fiji NUM. Because of these intolerable conditions, much of the workforce walked off the minesite in March 1991 (227). As the strike continued, trade unionists were sacked by the company (228), arsonist attacks were made on the mine installations (229), and scab labour was drafted in (230). At the end of May 1991, the striking workers vowed to continue their industrial action (231).
Not only was WMC now facing indigenous militancy from an area where it had long plowed its dirty furrow. In September 1991, tribal groups in the Cotabato region of the Philippines demanded that WMC halt all plans to open up a gold mine on their land, at Maitu, the last virgin forest in the area (232). Said Uray Baloli, a Kalagan: "If we cannot have our land, we'd rather die" (232).
On the company's strategy to manipulate its workforce and get rid of key trade unionists: H M Thompson and Howard Smith, "The World Nickel Market - an Australian Perspective", in Raw Materials Report, Vol. 5, No.4, pp 60-64, 1987.
Further Reading: On the leaching process used at the Roxby mine, to remove the uranium before copper smelting: J A Asteljoki and H B Muller, "Direct smelting of blister copper - pilot flash smelting tests of Olympic Dam concentrate", in Pyrometallurgy, 1987 (IMM) London, 21-2319/87.
For further technical descriptions: "Update on Olympic Dam Cu-U-Au project, Australia", MM 1/85 and EcMJ 4/87.
For the companies' description of the project: The Olympic Dam Project (Western Mining, BP, Roxby Management Services) 1982.
Critical works on Roxby: Did they tell you the whole story about Roxby? Roxby Action Group (leaflet), c/o CANE Adelaide, 1983.
Background to Roxby Downs, Roxby Downs Books Collective, (Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Australia - CNFA), 1982. This is excellent on all aspects of the project, though there are two slightly different versions.
What is BP up to? 1988 booklet from British Women Working for a Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific, and Aboriginal Land Rights Support Group (ALRSG).
Meeting with BP, account (typescript) by Moira Hope (FoE Haringey) on her discussion, 10/11/82, with BP personnel, London, on various aspects of Roxby (available from PARTiZANS - see contact list).
WMC Alternative Report, Shareholders for Social Responsibility, Melbourne, 1981.
Contact: In Australia: Redfern Black Rose Bookshop, 36 Botany Road, Alexandria, 2015.
CANE, c/o Kathy Paine, 24 Rankine Road, Torrensville, SA 5031.
South Australian Uranium Information Fund, 24 Rankine Rd., Torrensville, SA 5031.
CNFA (Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Australia), c/o MAUM Sydney, PO K133, Haymarket, NSW 2000.
WISE Glen Aplin, PO Box 87, Glen Aplin Queensland 4381.
MAUM, Environment Centre, 245-7 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, 3000 Australia.
Outside Women Campaigning for a Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific, c/o Sigrid Shayer, 25 Collingwood, Redland, Bristol BS6 6PD, England.
Laka Foundation, Pesthuislaan 118, 1054 RM, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Aboriginal Land Rights Support Group,19c Lancaster Road, London W11, England.
PARTiZANS, 218 Liverpool Rd., London N1 1LE, England.
Fiji Trades Union Congress, 32 Des Voeux Road, P O Box 1418, Suva, Fiji.
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.
Distribution: Sales to bookshops: Pluto Press, 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA, UK. Sales to the mining industry and libraries: Uitgeverij Jan van Arkel, A. Numankade 17, 357t KP Utrecht, the Netherlands.
***Note to electronic texts: selections from Minewatch are available to researchers on corporate and mining affairs. However, the detailed REFERENCES and CHARTS in the print version are not available in electronic form. You are encouraged to order the complete book from the sources above.***
All rights reserved. © Minewatch, 1992.
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