Boss Energy has restarted uranium mining at Honeymoon in South Australia
Boss Energy aims to produce the first uranium from its Honeymoon Mine in eastern South Australia after restarting in-situ mining.
Boss Energy aims to produce the first uranium from its Honeymoon mine in South Australia before the end of the year after restarting mining at the project.
Mining at Honeymoon was suspended a decade ago under a different corporate owner, in response to falling uranium prices.
Boss acquired the project in late 2015 and embarked on a series of optimisation studies which have led to the asset being brought back into production.
Honeymoon in an in-situ leach mining operation, in which a solution is pumped underground where it dissolves the uranium, which is stripped out on its return to the surface.\ Boss said it was currently pre-conditioning its first wellfield in the lead up to it feeding the processing plant with extracted uranium in the fourth quarter of the year.
“Completion of these milestones ensures Honeymoon remains on track for production in the December quarter, 2023,’’ the company told the Australian Securities Exchange on Wednesday.
Boss managing director Duncan Craib said it was a pivotal milestone for the company.
“The project development is proceeding to plan and remains on time and on budget as Boss moves towards the restart of Honeymoon in a few months’ time,’’ he said.
“Our timing is looking ideal, with the uranium market continuing to tighten and the spot price moving up, now trading at decade highs of $US69 per pound of uranium oxide.’’
The pre-conditioning work will take about two months after which the in-situ recovery process will start.
“This involves fortifying the pre-conditioned groundwater with reagents prior to injecting the ‘lixiviant’ into and through the ore body to dissolve uranium,’’ the company said.
“The uranium rich solution is then pumped to the surface via extraction wells and discharged to the pregnant leach solution process ponds.
“Uranium is captured from the lixiviant via ion exchange, precipitated and calcined to produce a high quality saleable uranium oxide product.’’
Boss shares were 6.4 per cent higher at $4.60. The stock has more than doubled in the past 12 months, at one stage recently trading as high as $4.98.
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