I've just bought the book The Olympic Dam Story: how Western Mining defied the odds to discover and develop the world's largest mineral deposit by David Upton. It's about BHP's Olympic Dam Project, the world's most valuable mineral resource.
Since acquiring Western Mining, BHP has more than doubled Olympic Dam ore reserves. Upton estimates that the current value of Olympic Dam ore is around $863 billion including $470 billion in copper, $270 billion in uranium, $116 billion in gold and $8 billion in silver.
The $863 billion valuation means that Olympic Dam has surpassed the value of Norilsk’s nickel-copper-palladium-platinum resource in Siberia which is valued at $745 billion. The Andina Chile copper deposit is third at $631 billion.
Because BHP’s drilling has doubled the Olympic Dam ore body it is now economic to create the world's biggest open cut mine. BHP will spend the next five to seven years removing the overburden. The world has never seen mining on this scale before. Under the BHP plan final product treatment will probably take place in China so we are looking at a massive transportation exercise – perhaps via Darwin. China will need the uranium because it is erecting hundreds of nuclear power plants and will later use its technology to erect them around the world.
The Olympic Dam Story includes a plethora of new information, sure to please the most demanding reader and mining enthusiast.
