Honeymoon Mine
The Honeymoon Uranium Project, located in the uranium-producing state of South Australia, is an advanced in situ recovery (ISR) project. Uranium One owns 51% of the Honeymoon Uranium Project Joint Venture, which owns the Honeymoon Project. The remaining 49% of the joint venture in owned by Mitsui & Co., Ltd. Planned technical processes for uranium extraction have been confirmed through the operation of a demonstration plant and a field leach trial over an 18 month period. Steady state production levels are expected to be 880,000 pounds U3O8 per year.
Mineral Resources
Honeymoon hosts an Indicated Resource base of 6.5 million pounds U3O8 contained within 1.2 million tonnes at an average grade of 0.24%. Mineralization extends over an area of 900 x 450 metres at an average depth of 110 metres. The Honeymoon deposit is recognized as five discrete mineralized sand packages separated by laterally extensive clay seams.
The Indicated mineral resource estimate according to each sand unit has been estimated from drill intercepts of 0.4 metre minimum thickness and 0.03% U3O8 minimum grade up to 1 metre of internal dilution. An economic grade thickness cut-off of 0.1m% U3O8 has been applied.
Honeymoon Uranium Project – Indicated Mineral Resource
|
Sand Unit
|
Ore
(tonnes) |
Grade
(%U3O8) |
Tonnes
U3O8 |
Pounds
U3O8 |
Thickness
(metres) |
GT
(m%U3O8) |
|
EBS-5 |
89,000
|
0.13
|
120
|
260,000
|
1.4
|
0.18
|
|
EBS-4 |
45,000
|
0.17
|
77
|
170,000
|
1.2
|
0.20
|
|
EBS-3 |
140,000
|
0.37
|
530
|
1,170,000
|
1.4
|
0.51
|
|
EBS-2 |
410,000
|
0.28
|
1,100
|
2,500,000
|
1.7
|
0.47
|
|
EBS-1 |
530,000
|
0.20
|
1,100
|
2,400,000
|
2.1
|
0.43
|
|
Total |
1,200,000
|
0.24
|
2,900
|
6,500,000
|
1.7
|
0.42
|
Notes:
- Minor apparent multiplication mismatch of contained U3O8 in the resource figures is due to post-computational rounding of all components to two significant digits
- Mineral resources have been estimated by K.F. Bampton, MSc, MAusIMM, MAIG of Ore Reserve Evaluation Services (Adelaide) and reported in accordance with JORC
- Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability
Geology and Mineralization
The source of Honeymoon's uranium is considered to have been derived from both chemical and mechanical weathering of a high-level granite located approximately two kilometres to the south of the deposit. The majority of mineralization is located near the confluence with a major tributary entering the Yarramba Paleovalley from the south and is also associated with a topographical high in the channel floor. The deposit is generally of the "sediment hosted" or "sandstone uranium" type and the distribution of the mineralization is structurally influenced.
Uranium mineralization at Honeymoon occurs in highly permeable unconsolidated and saturated sands, which are sealed below impervious clay horizons. This physical setting in association with extremely fine grained, acid soluble uranium mineralogy of uraninite, coffinite and uranium phosphates, suggests amenability to ISR mining.
Extraction Method
The basic wellfield design will be based on "7-spot" patterns, which consist of six injection wells arranged in a 20 – 60 metre hexagon, with a centrally located production well. Local variations in pattern size may occur on wellfield margins and where low-permeability ore zones require closer-spaced patterns.
The wellfield requires conditioning prior to the commencement of leaching operations to achieve optimum uranium production. Conditioning involves lowering the pH of the ground water in the ore zone to a range of 2.0 to 2.5 (equivalent to the pH of lemon juice). Leach solution will then be introduced into the ore zone via injection wells causing the uranium minerals to be extracted (creating pregnant leach solution).
Approximately 30 production wells will be required to be in operation at any one time in order to meet the process plant design feed requirements. The selected production rate is 880,000 pounds per annum U3O8 equivalent.
Processing Method
Pregnant leach solution will be pumped back to surface for processing via the production wells. The process plant will utilize solvent extraction (SX) technology to recover uranium from the pregnant leach solution. The uranium product will consist predominantly of uranium peroxide and will be precipitated from aqueous strip solution from solvent extraction. The uranium product will be de-watered and dried prior to packaging for transport.
