Monday 8 March 2006
By NIGEL ADLAM, NT News

Ranger mine to stay until 2014

RANGER is trying to show there's life in the old dog yet.

The Territory's only uranium mine was due to close in 2011. But the soaring price of yellowcake has persuaded Energy Resources of Australia to extend its life for a further three years.

And chief executive Harry Kenyon-Slaney said this week Ranger may survive even beyond that.

"We want to extract everything we can," he said.

The extensions are good news for nearby Jabiru, which will have
to switch from being a mining town to a service centre for the tourism industry when Ranger closes. The mine employs 350 workers.

Mining will cease in 2008 and the processing of stockpiles was scheduled to end three years later. But milling will now continue to at least 2014. Lower grade ore will be processed, which means less uranium oxide will be produced.

Mr Kenyon-Slaney said the workforce would be cut -- but not "drastically" -- after 2008.

Ranger pays about $13 million a year in royalties to the Commonwealth and Northern Territory governments. It has paid more than $207 million in royalties since opening in 1981.

Ranger produced a record 5900 tonnes of uranium oxide last year,
making it the biggest uranium mine in Australia and second in the
world. Olympic Dam in South Australia will become the largest when it expands over the next few years. The demand for uranium is likely to increase over the next few decades.

There are 440 nuclear power reactors in the world.
Thirty-three are under construction and a further 32 planned.
More reactors are expected to be built in America and Britain.