Balanced costs: Inland copper smelting location and fuel in South Australia 1848-76: Were they so naive?

Abstract

Because it takes more than one ton of coal to smelt a similar quantity of minerals, and because coal is weight for weight less valuable than the mineral, it makes good logistical and economic sense to transport the mineral to the coal rather than vice versa. Yet in the 19th century at the Burra Burra mines, common sense appears to have been turned on its head. Not only was the smelter erected by the Patent Copper Company (later called the English & Australian Copper Company) located in South Australia, where at the time there were no proven coal deposits, but it was situated at Kooringa 160km inland from the main Port of Adelaide, and adjacent to the Burra Burra mines, thus making the decision seemingly even more illogical from an economic point of view. The paper sets out to examine the reasoning behind the decision to locate at the site.