The following is an excerpt from a briefing paper prepared by JOHN HALLAM of Friends of the Earth, Sydney, in 1994. It provides useful background information to Energy Resources Australia's current push to begin uranium mining at Jabiluka in Kakadu National Park as soon as possible and signals further mining activity in the area.
At present, the Ranger uranium mill is operating well below its capacity of 3000 tonnes/year. ERA is feeding the mill from broken ore stockpiled from the Ranger 1 ore body, which is virtually worked out. ERA figures that its ore stockpile will last till 1999. Development of the Ranger 3 ore body or North Ranger 2 (Jabiluka) will have to commence at least two years earlier, by 1997.
According to the ERA 1994 Annual Report, 18,900 tonnes of uranium remain in the Ranger 1 ore body, and there are 90,400 tonnes in the North Ranger 2 ore body. According to the ERA Company Profile (1994), ore grades for the (as yet undeveloped) Ranger 3 ore body are 0.31% and 0.32% for Ranger 1. North Ranger 2 has a significantly higher ore grade of 0.46%.
On the basis of these ore grades and reserves, ERA argues that in order to fulfil its anticipated market from 1999/2000, it will have to expand its milling capacity by 50% unless it is able to use the 50% richer North Ranger 2 ore. The Company Profile says, "A decision on the next mine must be taken by ... July 1995 if the market responds as forecast".
With 90,400 tonnes in North Ranger 2, 56,000 tonnes in Ranger 3 and 16,000 tonnes left in and stockpiled from Ranger 1, ERA will possess 162-166 thousand tonnes of uranium, out of a total of 462,000 tonnes for the whole of Australia. Most of the rest is at Roxby (Olympic Dam) in South Australia.
This compares with global reserves of 2.3 million tonnes, giving ERA around 7% of total global uranium reserves. According to the Company Profile, with North Ranger 2 in production, ERA will rank as number two or three in the list of uranium producers in the world.
In 1994, Ranger produced only 1461 tonnes of uranium. In 1993 it produced the even lower figure of 1335 tonnes. In 1992, the Ranger mill produced 2980 tonnes, and in 1991, 2908 tonnes.
Sales have exceeded actual mill production by significant margins, partly via the sale of stockpiled tonnage, and partly via the sale of spot purchases and long-term purchases of Kazakhstan product. Thus in 1994, ERA sold 1934 tonnes of Ranger product and 1510 tonnes of Kazakhstan product.
The 1994 Company Profile produces a table of "possible new contracts" of 1500 tonnes/year, of which 550 tonnes/year would be from unspecified US and European purchasers, and 500 tonnes/year from a contract with Tokyo Electric.
While the actual status of these contracts is not clear, what is abundantly clear is ERA's determination to develop North Ranger 2. The Company Profile notes: "ERA's goal of 9% of world market share is dependent on timely development approval for North Ranger", and "Without North Ranger, ERA will become a second-ranking producer of declining competitiveness after 2000". ERA sees North Ranger 2 as "A vital marketing asset, offering life-of-reactor supply potential".
The Ranger mill has been designed so it can be upgraded to operate at a capacity of 6000 tonnes/year (double the current capacity) with minimal alterations. At the time of the 1977 Ranger Inquiry, ERA confidently expected that the Ranger mill would quickly be upgraded.
The inquiry report gives an idea what a doubling in milling capacity would mean. As the rate of mining (but not the ultimate size of the pits or tailings piles) would double, there would need to be in operation more drills, front-end loaders and trucks. At the mill, the size of the crushing equipment would remain the same, though it would be in use for longer periods. The number of rod-mills, ball-mills, and leaching tanks would need to be increased, and the size of the sulphuric acid plant would have to be doubled, while the solvent-extraction circuit would have to be duplicated.
While ERA has pushed North Ranger 2 as the clean "low-impact alternative" to developing Ranger 3, ERA actually wants to develop both ore bodies. According to ERA's 1994 Annual Report, "The preferred development sequence of the two ore bodies is North Ranger 2 followed by Ranger 3 within three years of a commencement of mining at North Ranger". Indeed, ERA completed a feasibility study for North Ranger 2 in August 1993, and one for Ranger 3 in June 1994.
Ranger 3 lies in part directly underneath Djalkmara billabong. This means that water management and the possible contamination of Magela Creek (to which it is relatively close) will be an issue. But since the development of Ranger 3 was covered (inadequately) in the 1977 Ranger Inquiry, and as the current ERA plan to develop Ranger 3 is not radically different from that canvassed in the inquiry, the danger is that a new environmental impact assessment won't even be required, as it would be for the development of North Ranger 2.