http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/business/the-four-mile-uranium-mine...

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The Four Mile uranium mine is expected to start production next month


A $100 million uranium mine is expected to start production in the State’s far north next month, in a sign of growing confidence in future demand for the nuclear fuel.

Quasar Resources and Alliance Resources expect to start production at the Four Mile uranium project in the northern Flinders Ranges in April subject to final regulatory approvals.

It will be South Australia’s fourth uranium mine, and the nation’s fifth.

The mine will initially run for 10 months as a proof of concept, but has enough resources to produce uranium for up to 15 years.

The state’s uranium sector has been under pressure since the Fukushima nuclear incident in 2011, which led to shutdowns of nuclear reactors across Japan and other countries, and dampened enthusiasm for nuclear power.

Investor interest is now picking up however, with Japan recently announcing it will restart several reactors by the end of the year and countries such as China and India pushing ahead with their building plans.

In addition to the Japanese restarts, according to the World Nuclear Association, there are currently 70 new reactors under construction, another 173 planned and 310 proposed. This is in addition to the 434 which already exist.

The current uranium price of $US34.70 per pound is well below highs of $US138 it reached in 2007, however industry sources have told The Advertiser large utilities are currently trying to lock in long-term contracts, indicating that the price is headed north.

This is also good news for BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam mine in the north of the state, which contains the world’s largest known uranium deposit.

The Four Mile project will use the in-situ leach mining method, in which a weakly acidic solution is pumped underground, then extracted containing uranium.

The first uranium sales from the Four Mile mine are expected to start in July.

While the project has a mineral resource of 71 million pounds of uranium, the first stage of the project is expected to mine just more than two million pounds.

A Future SA survey conducted by The Advertiser this year showed 58.3 per cent of respondents were in favour of nuclear power for SA.