About Uranium

Uranium Mining

In the last sixty years uranium has become one of the world’s most important energy minerals. It is used almost entirely for making electricity, though a small proportion is used for the important task of producing medical isotopes.

Uranium is a naturally occurring element with an average concentration of 2.8 parts per million in the Earth's crust. Traces of it occur almost everywhere. It is more abundant than gold, silver or mercury, about the same as tin and slightly less abundant than cobalt, lead or molybdenum. Vast amounts of uranium also occur in the world's oceans, but in very low concentrations.

Uranium mines operate in some twenty countries, though 58% of world production comes from just ten mines in six countries, these six providing 85% of the world's mined uranium. Most of the uranium ore deposits at present supporting these mines have average grades in excess of 0.10% of uranium – that is, greater than 1000 parts per million. In the first phase of uranium mining to the 1960s, this would have been seen as a respectable grade, but today some Canadian mines have huge amounts of ore up to 20% U average grade. Other mines however can operate successfully with very low grade ores, down to about 0.02% U.

Some uranium is also recovered as a by-product with copper, as at Olympic Dam mine in Australia, or as by-product from the treatment of other ores, such as the gold-bearing ores of South Africa, or from phosphate deposits such as Morocco and Florida. In these cases the concentration of uranium may be as low as a tenth of that in orebodies mined primarily for their uranium content. An orebody is defined as a mineral deposit from which the mineral may be recovered at a cost that is economically viable given the current market conditions. Where a deposit holds a significant concentration of two or more valuable minerals then the cost of recovering each individual mineral is reduced as certain mining and treatment requirements can be shared. In this case, lower concentrations of uranium than usual can be recovered at a competitive cost.

Generally speaking, uranium mining is no different from other kinds of mining unless the ore is very high grade. In this case special mining techniques such as dust suppression, and in extreme cases remote handling techniques, are employed to limit worker radiation exposure and to ensure the safety of the environment and general public.

Searching for uranium is in some ways easier than for other mineral resources because the radiation signature of uranium's decay products allows deposits to be identified and mapped from the air.

Different Kinds of Mines

Open Pit and Underground Mining

Where orebodies lie close to the surface, they are usually accessed by open cut mining, involving a large pit and the removal of much overburden (overlying rock) as well as a lot of waste rock. Where orebodies are deeper, underground mining is usually employed, involving construction of access shafts and tunnels but with less waste rock removed and less environmental impact. In either case, grade control is usually achieved by measuring radioactivity as a surrogate for uranium concentration. (The radiometric device detects associated radioactive minerals which are decay products of the uranium, rather than the uranium itself.)

At Ranger in north Australia, Rossing in Namibia, and most of Canada's Northern Saskatchewan mines through to McClean Lake, the orebodies have been accessed by open cut mining. Other mines such as Olympic Dam in Australia, McArthur River, Rabbit Lake and Cigar Lake in Northern Saskatchewan, and Akouta in Niger are underground, up to 600 metres deep. At McClean Lake and possibly Ranger, mining will be completed underground.

In Situ Leach mining

Some orebodies lie in groundwater in porous unconsolidated material (such as gravel or sand) and may be accessed simply by oxygenating that groundwater and pumping it out with dissolved uranium – this is in situ leach (ISL) mining. ISL mining means that removal of the uranium minerals is accomplished without any major ground disturbance. Weakly acidified groundwater (or alkaline groundwater where the ground contains a lot of limestone such as in the USA) with a lot of oxygen in it is circulated through an enclosed underground aquifer which holds the uranium ore in loose sands. The leaching solution dissolves the uranium before being pumped to the surface treatment plant where the uranium is recovered as a precipitate. Most US and Kazakh uranium production is by this method.

Heap leaching

Some ore, usually very low-grade, is treated by heap leaching. Here the broken ore is stacked on an impermeable pad and irrigated with acid or alkaline solution. The pregnant liquor from this is treated to recover the uranium, as with ISL.

Mining and Processing

Conventional mines have a mill where the ore is crushed, ground, and then leached with sulfuric acid to dissolve the uranium oxides. The solution is then processed to recover the uranium.

Most of the ore is barren rock or other minerals which remain undissolved in the leaching process. These solids or 'tailings' are separated from the uranium-rich solution, usually by allowing them to settle out. The remaining solution is filtered and the uranium separated by ion exchange. The final chemical precipitate is filtered and dried to produce a uranium oxide concentrate, about 99% U3O8 or about 85% uranium by mass. This is sometimes referred to as yellowcake, though it is usually khaki. It is then packed into 200 litre steel drums which are sealed for shipment. The U3O8 is only mildly radioactive (the radiation level one metre from a drum of freshly-processed U3O8 is about half that – from cosmic rays - on a commercial jet flight). In ISL mills the process of uranium recovery is very similar, without the need for crushing.