Why the NZ Government is talking up mining

WHY THE NZ GOVERNMENT IS TALKING UP MINING
1. The National Government regards mining as a vital contributor towards making New Zealand as wealthy as Australia.
2. The United Nations has just added 1.6 million square kilometres (six times NZ’s land area) to our exclusive economic zone.
3. NZ’s marine territories extend almost to Tonga and are the fourth largest in the world.
4. Many of NZ’s rich marine deposits lie on the sea floor and require no great excavation.
5. The World Bank ranks New Zealand as second only to Saudi Arabia in natural mineral wealth per capita. Australia is 16th.
6. Taking NZ’s sea floor assets into account, NZ is the wealthiest per capita in the world.
7. GNS Science has identified in New Zealand 16 minerals in 32 different types of deposit including zinc, lead, copper, nickel, tin, tungsten, iron and gold.
8. Apart from coal, New Zealand’s metallic mineral resource is valued at $140 billion.
9. NZ’s ten main lignite coal fields total 11 billion tonnes and are technically and economically renewable. Seven billion tonnes are easily accessible. Used as fuel for heat generation they are worth $300 - $500 billion. Extracted at a rate of 20 million tonnes per year this could provide energy and feedstock for most of NZ’s fuel and petrochemical needs for at least 500 years.
10. Any one of the NZ lignite fields has the capacity to produce 70 million tonnes a year of petrol, diesel, jet fuel and methanol for the next 65 years.
11. A $1.4 bn lignite-to-urea fertiliser plant is now being scoped. It would eliminate the current importation of $1.0 bn of urea a year and enable NZ to export urea as well.
12. A single $6 bn lignite-to-gas plant would provide NZ with all the diesel it needs for a dollar per litre retail.
Refs: Mercantile Gazette – 12/10/09, Quarrying & Mining – 11/09

However
13. NZ’s Resource Management Act as it is currently worded has failed to prevent desecration of the natural environment by miners, developers, and others.
14. New Zealand has yet to see a modern mine operating profitably while producing a negligible environmental footprint.