PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) has welcomed the passing of the Atomic Energy Act Amendments Bill, which will allow the company to extend its existing authority of the Ranger uranium mine, in the Northern Territory, beyond the current 2026 deadline.
The federal government in September introduced the Bill to allow ERA to keep working on the rehabilitation of the mine until the work is complete.
The Bill followed ERA earlier this year revealing that it would require an additional A$1.06-billion to A$1.65-billion in capital to complete rehabilitation of the uranium project, after an independent review of the rehabilitation estimated a cost of between A$1.6-billion and A$2.2-billion for the project, compared with the 2019 cost estimates of A$973-million, while pushing back the completion of rehabilitation work to between the fourth quarter of 2027 and the fourth quarter of 2028.
Production at the Ranger mine, in the Northern Territory, ceased in January 2021, in accordance with the Ranger Authority, and ERA has been undertaking rehabilitation efforts since that time.
ERA said on Thursday that the passing of the Bill allowed the company to continue rehabilitation at Ranger until the process was complete.
ERA in October entered into an amended A$100-million credit facility with shareholder Rio Tinto, which will have a maturity date of the end of March next year, unless additional funds were raised before then, or unless extended by Rio. ERA said at the time that the credit facility provided the company with additional time to negotiate and implement a future funding solution and offered additional assurance to the company’s stakeholders that rehabilitation of the Ranger Project Area would continue to be funded.