http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,25520932-462,00.htm...

http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,25520932-462,00.html

BHP Billiton bets big on new uranium mine
By Matt Chambers
The Australian
May 22, 2009 07:53am
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+ - Print Email Share Add to MySpace Add to Digg Add to del.icio.us Add to Fark Post to Facebook Add to Kwoff What are these? AUSTRALIA is on track to get its first major uranium mine in more than 20 years, with BHP Billiton planning to exploit the Liberal West Australian Government's removal of a longstanding ban by developing the $17 billion Yeelirrie deposit in the heart of the state.
Just eight months after Premier Colin Barnett came to power promising to lift the Labor veto on uranium mining, BHP Billiton has submitted documents to the Federal Environment Department signalling plans to start development at Yeelirrie in two years and to begin mining by 2014.

Under the mining giant's plans, Yeelirrie will increase Australian exports of uranium by 50per cent and, at its peak, overtake Rio Tinto's Ranger uranium mine in the Northern Territory as the nation's biggest, The Australian reports.

Demand for Australian uranium exports is forecast to continue growing strongly as major nations - led by China and India - embrace nuclear energy as a cleaner alternative to coal-fired power.

Development of the Yeelirrie operation, about 400km north of Kalgoorlie, is expected to run to hundreds of millions of dollars. During construction, the mine will employ about 700 people, with about 300 needed during production.

The project would be the biggest in the uranium industry since Federal Labor came to power in 2007, having overturned the party's long-standing ban on no new uranium mines.

There are only three operating mines in Australia: Ranger in the Northern Territory and Olympic Dam and the smaller Beverley mine in South Australia. Production at a fourth mine, Honeymoon, in northern South Australia, is due to start next year.

Yeelirrie is Australia's second-biggest unmined uranium deposit, with at least 52,000 tonnes, after the mothballed Jabiluka in the Northern Territory.

BHP Billiton said it planned to produce an average of 5000 tonnes of uranium a year from the deposit for more than 30 years. At current prices, that would translate into revenue of more than $US13 billion ($17billion) over its life.

The mine is yet to be approved by the board of BHP Billiton, which also owns Olympic Dam, where it is planning a massive expansion to 19,000 tonnes of uranium oxide a year. Olympic Dam, which also produces copper and gold, was the last major uranium mine to be developed, starting production in 1988.

The documents lodged with the Environment Department are part of the environmental impact statement process, the first steps in obtaining government approval for the Yeelirrie project. Processed radioactive uranium oxide is planned to be trucked to Kalgoorlie in drums then put on trains to Adelaide or Darwin - the only ports currently allowed to export uranium.

A spokeswoman for Mr Barnett said last night the state Government did not intend to ship uranium from its ports. She said that even if volumes required it, uranium would never be allowed through residential ports such as Fremantle.