Environmental risk of mining - Environmental Deterioration and Contamination: Problems and their Management - page 119

information sources, in spite of the activity of the International Council on Mining
and Metals (ICMM, 2013) and its Australian partner, the Committee for Mineral
Reserves International Reporting Standards (CRIRSCO, 2013) having the primary
objective of developing a set of international standard definitions for the reporting
of mineral resources and mineral reserves. In parallel, the United Nations Economic
Commission for Europe (UNECE, 2013) had been developing an International Frame-
work Classification for Mineral Reserves and Resources (UNFC, 1977). After the
agreement between the two international organizations, an International Minerals
Reporting Code Template has been issued.
World coal production changed from 2007 to 2011 from 6.6 to 7.7 billion tonnes.
China continued to be the largest producer with 2.7 billion tonnes in 2007 and 3.5 in
2011, 45% of world production. The US remained the second largest producer with
1 billion tonnes and India became the third with 628 million tonnes by 2011.
China was also the top mine producer of zinc in 2011, with 33% of the word
production, followed by Australia and Peru.
China mines 2.3 million tones of primary lead, 50% of world production, 4 times
the next largest lead mining country, Australia. Lead is obtained from galena by smelt-
ing. This involves roasting of ore to remove the sulfur and to obtain lead oxide, which
is then reacted with coke in a furnace. World reserves of lead are 89 million tonnes of
which Australia holds 36 million tonnes, China holds 14, Russia 9 million tonnes and
the US 5 million tonnes (BGS, 2009; USGS, 2013).
According to the BGS (2013) statistical data for 2007-2011, China is the world's
largest gold producer (361 tonnes), followed by Australia (258 tonnes) and USA (234
tonnes) in 2011. The production of South Africa, the former number one, dropped
to 180 tonnes. Global gold mine production in 2011 was 2,600 tonnes. European
countries in total produced less than 10% (235 tonnes) of the world output in 2011.
According to BGS (2013), China has been the largest iron ore producer since 2007,
and almost doubled its production between 2007 and 2011 (from 707 million to 1.3
billion tonnes, 44% of world production). China is followed by Australia and Brazil.
Rising demand of copper has meant operation of many mines at full capacity.
Nine countries account for about 80% of world copper mine production. Each of
these nine countries produces over 500,000 tonnes of copper per year. The largest
reserves are in Chile (150-190 million tonnes), in Peru (30-76 million tonnes), the US
(35-39 million tonnes each), in Indonesia, Mexico and Poland (28-35 million tonnes
each) (Edelstein, 2010; USGS, 2013). The statistics on reserves are highly variable, e.g.
Australia is listed with 86 million (USGS, 2013), but the Joint Ore Reserve Committee
Code (JORC, 2013) reserves account for around 24 million tonnes, 28% of Accessible
Economic Demonstrated Resources (AEDR) (Australian Mines Atlas, 2013).
Nickel mine production showed fluctuation in the last years; 1.6 million tonnes
in 2007, 1.4 million in 2009 and 1.8 million tonnes in 2011. The largest producer of
mined nickel in 2011 was Philippines with 319 thousand tonnes, the rest of the field
is well balanced between Russia, Indonesia, Canada and Australia. The majority of
economic nickel deposits occur in two geological environments. These are magmatic
sulfide deposits of pentlandite (Ni,Fe) 9 S 8 and lateritic deposits of nickeliferous limonite
(Fe,Ni)O(OH). Currently laterites account for about 70% of known nickel resources.
Regarding uranium mining, Kazakhstan became the largest producer of mined
uranium in 2011 with 19,451 tonnes which is 36% of the world's total of 54,300