Roh,There's one interesting thing about uranium...

Roh,

There's one interesting thing about uranium mining/processing and that's that the product can be very pure as "yellowcake".

This is likely to be because the uranium ore to yellowcake process is essentially a chemical process

Briefly, the crushed ore is gound then leached with sulphuric acid, U extracted from solution and then precipitated and filtered. The filter cake (which believe it or not is really yellow!) is calcined (heated) and becomes the shipping product - a pretty pure uranium oxide U3O8 (incidentally, this product is not yellow - it's a rather sombre greenish black!).

Compare this with sulphides. This is essentially a physical process. The crushed & ground ore is put through flotation cells where it is agitated in a special liquid. The surface tension properties between the liquid and the sulphide grains cause the sulphides to float and they are skimmed of the surface. This mixed sulphide product (after washing/drying) is what's shipped out. In CDU's case, the product goes about 30 - 35% chalcopyrite (?).

Hence a shipment of flotation sulphides usually contains a lot more waste than in the case of U3O8.

And interestingly there is a precedent in Aust for flying yellowcake out of the minesite. (You don't need to speculate on Rum Jungle {which was a pretty small show anyway}).

In the 1980s & 90s, Narbalek, a small but rich (~2.4%) ore body in western Arnhemland was mined, the ore processed to U3O8 stage and flown some hundreds of kms to Darwin for export by ship. The road out of Arnhemland was unsealed & poor, the East Alligator River was fierce (& impassable in the Wet{no bridge}) so they just flew it out in fixed-wing aircraft. About 10 or 12,000 tonne (in drums) over a 10 or 12 year period.

I will say Roh that I'm less confident about Wilga being mined by CDU than you. I'd have to see a huge increase in resource tonnage before my confidence is boosted.

Cheers, Gung