Green light for yellowcake
WA’s Environment Minister has granted approval for what could be the state’s first uranium mine.
Mine owners Toro Energy now need the green light from Federal Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg to move ahead on the project at Wiluna in the northern Goldfields.
The State Government is looking to boost the fledgling uranium industry, recently approving Vimy Resources' Mulga Rock uranium project, 240 kilometres east-north-east of Kalgoorlie-Boulder.
The Wiluna and Mulga Rock are slated to create 170 and 315 full-time jobs respectively, if they enter production.
The state has produced no yellowcake since the Liberal Government overturned a ban on uranium mining in 2008.
The opposition is opposed to the mining and export of uranium, though Opposition Leader Mark McGowan says he would not stand in the way of a mine with existing approvals.
Wiluna gained its first State Government environmental approvals in October 2012, while Toro received federal approval six months later.
But the need to buy the Lake Maitland deposit from Mega Uranium in mid-2013 sent Toro back to the regulators to win further approvals for new deposits on its mine plan.
Some analysts expect uranium prices to recover soon, as they remain at near historic lows since the 2011 Japanese tsunami and Fukushima plant disaster.
The Department of Industry, Innovation and Science has forecast Australian uranium production will decrease by 6.8 per cent this financial year to 7,141 tonnes.
However, it says strong production at BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam mine and a ramp-up of production at Quasar Resources' Four Mile mine, should stimulate a rebound in production to 7,850 tonnes in 2017-18.
“Reactor construction in China, India, Russia and South America continues at a rapid pace, and while high uranium inventories may restrain prices for a time, higher global demand is likely to start putting upward pressure on prices by late 2017,” it said in a recent report.