Leach tank failure hits ERA production
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Uranium miner Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) has reported a 59% quarter-on-quarter drop in production during the three months to December, following the failure of a leach tank at its Ranger mine, in the Northern Territory.
During the quarter under review, uranium oxide (U3O8) production dropped to 503 t, which was also 17% below the third-quarter production. For the full 12 months ended December, ERA produced 2 960 t of U3O8.
Early in December, a mixture of slurry moved outside the bunded containment area of the processing plant following the failure of a leach tank. The miner moved to clear the spill and subsequently reported that water monitoring points had reported normal readings.
ERA told shareholders on Thursday that clean-up and recovery operations at the Ranger processing plant were progressing, adding that processing operations remained suspended pending the completion of a full investigation and regulatory approvals to restart.
U3O8 production for the quarter was also affected by the milling of primarily lower-grade stockpiled material, as the majority of the high-grade ore mined prior to the completion of mining at Pit 3 was processed during the first half of 2013.
Once the processing operations restarted, the mill would continue to be fed with the lower-grade stockpiled material until the start of production from the proposed Ranger 3 Deeps mine, which still required board and regulatory approval.
Meanwhile, ore milled during 2013 was down 10% on the previous financial year, owing to the suspension of the processing operations and the lower milling rates.
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