Sister State flattened by earth quake
IN scenes reminiscent of the tsunami tragedy that hit the South East Asian region on Boxing Day, Western Australia’s Japanese sister State the Hyogo prefecture, was coming to terms with the devastation of the Kobe earthquake this week 10 years ago.
Much of the city of Kobe was levelled in the earthquake, which left 2,000 people dead and another 12,000 injured.
Besides the human toll, the damage to Japan’s sixth largest city included the loss of its leading container shipping port, a collapsed transportation system and failing communications.
Major manufacturers such as Daihatsu Motor Co, Fujitsu Ltd, Mazda Motor and Kobe Steel Ltd all announced earthquake-related production shutdowns.
Early estimates put reconstruction costs as high as $30 billion.
Kobe was, and still is, a major receival point for WA resources.
On the home front, more than 30,000 private and public sector health workers were given Federal industrial relations coverage on the grounds that health and welfare services were substantially funded by the Commonwealth.
Technology Park resident Xenotech, now known as Dymanic Digital Depth, received its initial license $250,000 fee from Samsung.
The company had a $1 million plus royalties licence agreement with Samsung based on Xenotech’s technology for delivering flicker-free three dimensional television transmission.
Also on the imaging front, Perth inventor Monte Sala was angling for a role in the information superhighway with his system for the transmission of pictures and other images.
He found that an image could be greatly depleted, to about one eighth of its original size with the human brain detecting no difference in picture quality.
His company DSA is now a public entity known as Lumacom.
Its main product these days is moveable sign technology, a variant of the system Mr Sala was touting a decade previously.
On the resources front Gold Corporation, producer of the Australian Nugget precious metal coin series, announced it was closing its Kalgoorlie gold refinery.
The company said it would centralise refining at its Newburn refinery in Perth.
One of the key reasons for the closure was the change in global demand from the 99.5 per cent purity available from the Kalgoorlie plant to 99.9 per cent purity, which that refinery could not produce.
Joseph Gutnick was emerging as one of the most significant players in WA’s north eastern goldfields.
His company Johnson’s Well became the latest to hit the headlines with its announcements of several highly encouraging gold intersections from ground previously considered barren around the Duketon region north of Laverton.
Meekatharra gold producer St Barbara Mines turned its attention east with its agreement to purchase a 75 per cent stake in the Victorian tenements of Transkal Gold.
St Barbara committed to spend $1 million on Transkal’s tenements near Ballarat, Bendigo and St Arnaud over the next two years.
The company, meanwhile, recorded a strong December-half after-tax operating profit of $7.68 million thanks largely to strong production growth.
In the Kimberley CRA mounted its play for alluvial diamonds by reaching a farm-in agreement with Zephyr Minerals on its on-shore exploration interests in the Kununurra area.
CRA earlier farmed into the offshore diamond tenements held by Zephyr and Australian Kimberley Diamonds in the Cambridge Gulf.
Dominion Mining clinched the sale of its Northern Territory gold assets to Territory Goldfields for $10.8 million.
With the sale concluded, Dominion planned to concentrate on its Meekatharra, Mt Morgan and Bannockburn operations in WA.
Westgold Resources was getting more good news about its Tuckabianna gold project gamble with the identification of another potential gold mine.
Exploration near Cue had led to the discovery of the Comet North deposit which showed promise of a 30,000 ounce gold reserve.
Melbourne-based Denehurst moved to farm-in on Dragon Mining’s exploration areas in the west Pilbara with the commitment to spend $2.62 million on exploration and development over three years.
With that level of spend it would gain a 50 per cent interest in the properties.
Westralian Sands moved to expand its Vietnam ilmenite mine, taking a $US4.5 million loan from ANZ.
Offshore, drill stem testing on Ampolex’s Chrysaor-1 exploration well showed promise of a new gas reservoir in the major to giant class separate from the nearby Gorgon structure.