Monday, 4 December, 2006

by Stephen Johnson
NT News

THE Territory's only uranium mine will spend $27.6million building a clay separation plant next year, to extract more uranium oxide, it was revealed last week.

Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) - the operator of the Ranger mine near Jabiru - announced construction of the handling facility would start in April next year.

The plant is expected to start processing lateritic ore in the first quarter of 2008, ERA spokeswoman Amanda Buckley said.

Lateritic ore is uranium that is covered in clay.

The mine exports uranium oxide to power stations in South Korea, North America, Europe and Japan.

But uranium oxide covered in clay, also known as laterite, cannot be exported.

'It's very hard to put through the mill because it is very sticky,' Ms Buckley said.

About 1.6million tonnes of lateritic ore have been stockpiled at the mine site since operations started in 1980.

After separating clay, the new plant would process about 400 tonnes of uranium oxide a year between 2008 and 2014.

'This production is already included in ERA's current processing plan, and the lateritic ore forms part of current stated reserves,' the company said in a statement.

Ms Buckley said the mine dug up about 2.8million tonnes of earth from its open-cut operations every year.

Of that, up to 6000 tonnes is export-quality uranium oxide.

Only a small fraction is stockpiled lateritic ore.

'Most of what we get out of the ground doesn't have clay,' Ms Buckley said.

She said the plant had not yet been assigned a project manager and indicated it was too early to say how many jobs would be created.

ERA shareholders were told about the laterite processing plant before last week's announcement.