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PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The board of uranium miner Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) has approved the restart of the processing plant at its Ranger mine, in the Northern Territory.
The company was forced to suspend its processing plant operations in December last year, after a mixture of slurry moved outside the containment area, following the failure of a leach tank.
The leach tank had now been dismantled and removed from site, and an independent expert had made recommendations on asset integrity and maintenance at the Ranger processing plant, which ERA’s board had accepted.
The restart of the processing operations remained subject to the receipt of both commonwealth and state government approval.
The company said on Wednesday that implementing the company’s restart readiness plan would be completed during April, and would incorporate the suggestions made by the independent expert’s review, as well as work identified by the company’s own risk assessment activities.
Meanwhile, ERA was continuing to work with the government-appointed taskforce in order to satisfy the taskforce’s terms of reference to ensure a timely restart of operations.
Ongoing monitoring had confirmed that the surrounding area had not been affected by the leach tank failure, and ERA had reported that there has been no impact on the Kakadu National Park.