PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Lower mill head grades have resulted in uranium miner Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) reporting a decline in production during the March quarter, compared with the previous quarter.
ERA on Friday reported that it had produced 489 t of uranium oxide (U3O8) in the quarter, compared with the 599 t U3O8 produced in the three months to December.
This was despite higher volumes of ore and improved recovery as the rehabilitation of the Ranger project area, in the Northern Territory, continued. Construction of the infrastructure to enable Pit 3 to receive tailings for final deposition was completed in January, and first tailings from the mill were deposited into Pit 3 during February.
The Ranger processing plant was restarted in July last year, after a mixture of slurry moved outside the containment area following the failure of a leach tank in December of 2013.
Meanwhile, the Rio Tinto subsidiary reported that the board was reviewing a prefeasibility study for its Ranger 3 Deeps mine, aimed at further optimising the proposed development pathway.
A supplementary environmental impact statement for the proposed underground project was also under development, and would address matters raised during the public consultation period.
The supplementary statement would be lodged in the second quarter of 2015.