Send this article to a friend
Print this page

» Uranium One eyes downstream business
» Uranium One puts Oz growth on hold
» Uranium One to take breather - Jean Nortier executive director
» Uranium One in C$1.6bn Canuck swoop


Uranium One may double SA mine
Allan Seccombe
Posted: Mon, 09 Jul 2007

[miningmx.com] -- URANIUM One could double the amount of uranium it produces at its Dominion operation South Africa to 15 million pounds a year in the next decade, Robert van Niekerk, executive vice president Africa and Europe said on Monday.

Uranium One is currently on track to produce 3.8 million pounds of uranium at the Dominion mine, which is two hours drive west of Johannesburg, from three shallow declines. It has an extremely aggressive drilling programme utilising 25 rigs on its property to more than double the number of pounds its has in the indicated resources category.

The first phase output of 3.8 million pounds at steady state comes from 45 million pounds in indicated resources. There are plans to lift these resources to 100 million pounds to equip the operation to step up a gear into phase two, which includes another two declines and a 1,000 metre deep vertical shaft to raise output to seven million pounds.

But this utilises just a fraction of the ground Uranium One is permitted to explore. Van Niekerk said Dominion would reach its 3.8 million pound target mining just 10% of its ground. It has prospecting rights for 57,600 hectares and has applied for another 24,000 hectares.

“I don’t see Dominion being a seven million pound producer but a 14 million or 15 million pound producer,” van Niekerk told journalists visiting the operation.

Asked how certain he was of this forecast, he said it depended on what the exploration programme yielded, but based on the current area being mined, the high probability the same reef extended to the rest of the property and historical data from previous owners AngloGold Ashanti, the likelihood was good.

“I’d say I’m pretty confident.”

Dominion on Monday sent its first batch of ammonium diuranate to AngloGold Ashanti's Nufcor. It sent six tonnes of the material used to make yellow cake, which is further refined offshore to make enriched uranium for nuclear reactors.

Uranium One has built a R1bn plant to treat uranium ore at a rate of 200,000 tonnes a month to produce ammonium diuranate, which will be treated at AngloGold’s Nufcor plant to form yellowcake.

The plant can readily be expanded to accommodate the increase in phase two to 400,000 tonnes of ore a month by 2012.

In coming years, Uranium One will build two 1.5km deep shafts to maintain production at the 400,000 tonnes/month level.

A bankable feasibility study will be completed at the end of 2007 into the two new declines and a pre-feasibility study into the 1,000 metre deep vertical shaft will be wrapped up in the first quarter of 2008.

Click Here to subscribe to our daily newsletter
The Dominion mines are on the edge of the Wits Basin, which historically has produced 380 million pounds of uranium since the end of the Second World War, mainly as a by-product from gold mining.

The Department of Minerals and Energy has refused to grant prospecting rights to a number of properties Uranium One has applied for on the grounds that it stops other players from accessing the area and that the company has too much land. The Toronto and Johannesburg-listed company has these under appeal. The properties are not critical to Uranium One’s growth, van Niekerk said.

“All the numbers we are giving you are not dependent on those areas, but they are down-dip extensions and we would really like to have them,” he said, explaining these were surrounded by Uranium One holdings and it would be almost prohibitively expensive for a second party to explore and mine independently.