The Ranger Uranium Mine

The Ranger Uranium Mine

The Ranger Uranium Mine

Location: Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory, Australia.

Products: Uranium.

Owner: Energy Resources of Australia Limited.

Deposit Type: Unconformity-related uranium deposits.

Overview: In 1969 the Ranger orebody was discovered by a Joint Venture of Peko Wallsend Operations Ltd (Peko) and The Electrolytic Zinc Company of Australia Limited (EZ). In 1974 an agreement set up a joint venture consisting of Peko, EZ and the Australian Atomic Energy Commission (AAEC).

In 1978, following a wide ranging public inquiry (the Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry) and publication of its two reports (the Fox reports), agreement to mine was reached between the Commonwealth Government and the Northern Land Council, acting on behalf of the traditional Aboriginal land owners. The terms of the joint venture were then finalised and Ranger Uranium Mines Pty Ltd was appointed as manager of the project.

In August 1979 the Commonwealth Government announced its intention to sell its interest in the Ranger project. As a result of this, Energy Resources of Australia Ltd (ERA) was set up with 25% equity holding by overseas customers. In establishing the company in 1980 the AAEC interest was bought out for $125 million (plus project costs) and Peko and EZ became the major shareholders. Several customers held 25% of the equity in non-tradable shares. Ranger Uranium Mines Pty Ltd became a subsidiary of ERA. During 1987-8 EZ's interest in ERA was taken over by North Broken Hill Holdings Ltd and that company merged with Peko. Consequently ERA became a 68% subsidiary of North Limited, and this holding was taken over by Rio Tinto Ltd in 2000. In 1998 Cameco took over Uranerz, eventually giving it 6.69% of ERA, and Cogema took over other customer shares, giving it (now Areva) 7.76%.

Late in 2005 there was a rearrangement of ERA shares which meant that Cameco, Cogema and a holding company (JAURD) representing Japanese utilities lost their special unlisted status and their shares became tradable. The three companies then sold their shares, raising the level of public shareholding to 31.61%.

Geological Features: 

Features associated with some of the unconformity-related uranium deposits in the Alligator Rivers, Rum Jungle and South Alligator Valley uranium fields are as follows (modified after Ewers & others, 1984; Mernagh, Wyborn & Jagodzinski, 1998): The host rocks occur in intracontinental or continental margin basins; the deposits are near to a late Palaeoproterozoic oxidised thick cover sequence (>1 km) of quartz-rich sandstone;

The basement is chemically reduced, containing carbonaceous/ferrous iron-rich units or feldspar-bearing rocks;

The deposits are associated with a Palaeoproterozoic/late Palaeoproterozoic unconformity and with dilatant brecciated fault structures, which cut both the cover and basement sequences and separate reduced lithologies from the oxidised cover sequence;

Most of the large deposits in the Alligator Rivers and the Rum Jungle fields are in stratabound ore zones and have a regional association with carbonate rock/pelitic rock contact, but an antipathetic relationship with carbonate in the ore zones;

The major Australian deposits lie close to an unconformity although the Jabiluka deposit is still open some 550 m below the unconformity;

The known major uranium deposits are present where the oxidised cover sequence is in direct contact with the reducing environments in the underlying pre-1870 Ma Archaean–Palaeoproterozoic basement and not separated by an intervening sequence, as by the El Sherana and Edith River Groups in the South Alligator Valley uranium field.

Geological map of The Ranger Uranium Mine.

Local stratigraphy of The Ranger Mine

Alteration

Alteration features associated with the deposits are:

Alteration extends over 1 km from the deposits,

Alteration is characterised by sericite–chlorite ± kaolinite ± hematite,

Mg metasomatism and the formation of late-stage Mg rich chlorite are common,

Strong desilicification occurs at the unconformity.

Alteration geophysics responses

Source of Uranium mineralization

Archaean and Palaeoproterozoic granites of the Alligator Rivers and South Alligator Valley uranium fields have uranium contents which are well above the crustal average of 2.8 ppm U (Wyborn, 1990a). Granites and granitic gneisses of the Nanambu complex contain 3–50 ppm U; tonalites, granitic gneisses and granitic migmatites of the Nimbuwah complex have 1–10 ppm U. The Nabarlek Granite that has been intersected in drill holes below the Nabarlek deposit has 3–30 ppm U, and the Tin Camp and Jim Jim Granites also have high uranium contents. The Malone Creek Granite (South Alligator Valley) has 11–28 ppm U. Wyborn (1990b) suggested that the underlying crust in the region of these uranium fields is enriched in uranium. Maas (1989) concluded from Nd–Sr isotopic studies that for Jabiluka, Nabarlek and Koongarra, the uranium was derived from two sources: the Palaeoproterozoic metasediments and a post-unconformity source, probably highly altered volcanics within the Kombolgie Subgroup. Maas (1989) also proposed that these orebodies formed when hot oxidising meteoric waters, which contained uranium derived from volcano-sedimentary units within the Kombolgie, reacted with reducing metasediments of the Palaeoproterozoic basement.

Uranium mineralization 

Processing: Following crushing, the ore is ground and processed through a sulfuric acid leach to recover the uranium. The pregnant liquor is then separated from the barren tailings and in the solvent extraction plant the uranium is removed using kerosene with an amine as a solvent. The solvent is then stripped, using an ammonium sulphate solution and injected gaseous ammonia. Yellow ammonium diuranate is then precipitated from the loaded strip solution by raising the pH (increasing the alkalinity), and removed by centrifuge. In a furnace the diuranate is converted to uranium oxide product (U3O8).

Reserves & Resources: The Ranger 1 orebody, which was mined out in December 1995, started off with 17 million tonnes of ore some of which is still stockpiled. The Ranger 3 nearby is slightly larger, and open pit mining of it took place over 1997 to 2012.

In 1991 ERA bought from Pancontinental Mining Ltd the richer Jabiluka orebody (briefly known as North Ranger), 20 km to the north of the processing plant and with a lease adjoining the Ranger lease. ERA was proposing initially to produce 1000 t/yr from Jabiluka concurrently with Ranger 3. The preferred option involved trucking the Jabiluka ore to the existing Ranger mill, rather than setting up a new plant, tailings and waste water system to treat it on site as envisaged in an original EIS approved in 1979. However, all these plans are now superseded – see Australia's Uranium Deposits and Prospective Mines paper.

In the Ranger 3 Pit and Deeps the upper mine sequence consists of quartz-chlorite schists and the lower mine sequence is similar but with variable carbonate (dolomite, magnesite and calcite). The primary ore minerals have a fairly uniform uranium mineralogy with around 60% coffinite, 35% uraninite and 5% brannerite. In weathered and lateritic ores the dominant uranium mineralogy is the secondary mineral saleeite with lesser sklodowskite.

In the second half of 2008 a $44 million processing plant was commissioned to treat 1.6 million tonnes of stockpiled lateritic ore with too high a clay content to be used without this pre-treatment. Following initial treatment the treated ore is fed into the main plant, contributing 400 t/yr U3O8 production for seven years. A new $19 million radiometric ore sorter was commissioned at the same time, to upgrade low-grade ore and bring it to sufficient head grade to go through the mill. It will add about 1100 tonnes U3O8 to production over the life of the mine, and be essential for beneficiating carbonate ore from the lower mines sequence of the Ranger 3 Deeps.

A feasibility study into a major heap leach operation for 10 Mt/yr of low-grade ore showed the prospect of recovering up to 20,000 t U3O8 in total. Column leach trials were encouraging, yielding extractions of greater than 70% at low rates of acid consumption. The facility would consist of fully lined heaps of material about 5m high and covering about 60-70 ha. These will be built and removed on a regular cycle and the residues stored appropriately after leaching is completed. The acid leach solutions would be treated in a process similar to that used in the existing Ranger plant and recycled after the uranium is removed from the pregnant liquor. ERA applied for government (including environmental) approval for the project, which was expected to begin operation in 2014, but in August 2011 ERA announced that the plan was shelved due to high capital costs and uncertain stakeholder support. As a result, ore reserves of 7,100 tonnes of uranium oxide were reclassified as resources.

In 2006 the projected operating life of the Ranger plant was extended to 2020 due to an improvement in the market price enabling treatment of lower grade ores, and in 2007 a decision to extend the operating Ranger 3 open pit at a cost of $57 million meant that mining there continued to 2012. However, reassessment of the low-grade stockpile in 2011 resulted in downgrading reserves by 6100 t U3O8. The #3 pit is now being backfilled, and to mid-2014, 31 million tonnes of waste material had been moved there. It will then be used as a tailings dam.