Toro Energy’s general meeting last Friday heard the death toll sounding on WA’s uranium hopefuls.
Toro Chair Richard Homsany told the meeting that no one could get finance to build a uranium mine in Australia. He also acknowledged that Toro’s conditional environmental approval for its stalled Wiluna project expires on January 9, 2022. As a result, Toro will not be able to mine without making project changes that would require further state government scrutiny and approval from this date.
In 2017 the McGowan Labor government introduced a policy ban on uranium mining in WA but inherited four uranium mine proposals with existing approvals granted by the former Barnett government. By the end of January 2022, the current Ministerial approvals for all four of the states proposed uranium mines will expire if they do not commence mining.
Approval for Cameco’s Kintyre expired and was not renewed in March 2020, Vimy Resources Mulga Rock project approval expires in December 2021, and both Yeelirrie (Cameco) and Wiluna (Toro) are set to expire in January 2022. As a result, if any of these companies want to mine, they will need to seek approval for amendments to Ministerial conditions. This may trigger a new assessment or a suite of other conditions being applied.
CCWA nuclear free campaigner Kerrie-Ann Garlick attended last week’s Toro meeting to raise concerns that its most recent uranium proposal differs from its currently approved plan.
“Toro is now focused on developing a JV uranium project at Lake Maitland. This is completely separate from the existing approval for the Wiluna project and would require a whole new environmental assessment. It is our view that this could not be advanced because of the existing policy ban on uranium mining in WA.
“The Wiluna uranium mine proposal is uneconomic, and they don’t have the funding to develop it. There is almost no scenario in which the Wiluna uranium mine could be developed ahead of the approval expiry in January 2022.
“It is refreshing that the Toro Board are realistic about the current highly negative market conditions for uranium. No one is financing uranium mines, and that is unlikely to change by January. It is increasingly likely that we will reach a point in January 2022 where there are no operating mines and no active approvals for uranium mining in WA,” Ms Garlick concluded. | 
