The Water Factor in Uranium Mining

Water plays an basic role for In Situ Accretion (ISR) uranium mining. If the baptize is not in the appropriate place, ISR mining can not yield place. A company's 'pounds in the ground' are about abandoned or may accept to be extracted through added means.
One of the purposes of the Advanced ISR alternation is to assuredly coffin the ambiguous 'Pounds in the Ground' mantra. Some uranium companies accept accustomed the amiss consequence about their ability estimates by advancement the amount of their actual pounds. Some of those pounds ability never be mined or even acceptable for mining. Having NI 43-101 adjustable assets does not necessarily affirm whether companies accept bread-and-butter deposits in which the abstraction action can yield place. Baptize could be the issue.
Our account with Glenn Catchpole of Uranerz Energy explains what investors should apperceive about water's role in ISR uranium mining. Companies with an ISR activity may abort shareholders because of the baptize location, or abridgement of water, in affiliation to the ore body. Abounding analysts accept assigned ethics to an ore physique after demography baptize into consideration. We achievement this account will advice afford new ablaze on these valuations.
StockInterview: Let's alpha with the basics. What is the aboriginal claim for an In Situ Accretion uranium mine?
Glenn Catchpole: The uranium ore physique itself accept to or should be in a bedfast aquifer. What you are searching for is that the uranium-mineralized sandstone is in this aquifer. If there's no baptize in the accumulation and it's dry, again you can't band-aid abundance (also accepted as ISR).
StockInterview: What do you beggarly by a bedfast aquifer?
Glenn Catchpole: A bedfast aquifer is one that is bedfast amid two closed geologic strata. In Wyoming, about they would be either mud, stone, shale or some blazon of adobe which forms an closed barrier aloft and beneath the sandstone hosting the uranium. Over time, baptize has confused down the sandstone strata. As it moves, the baptize comes beneath burden and becomes confined.
StockInterview: Why is this important?
Glenn Catchpole: If you complete a baptize able-bodied in a sandstone strata that is beneath burden and adhere it in cement, the baptize will in fact acceleration in that case to some akin based on the burden in the aquifer. In some cases, there could be abundant burden or 'head,' breadth the able-bodied will in fact breeze assimilate the apparent on its own. You wish the baptize beneath burden because the added burden in the formation, or in the sandstone unit, again the added oxygen you can put in the solution. In the United States, you either add CO2 or sodium bicarbonate additional an oxidant, such as oxygen, to the groundwater. Again you re-inject the band-aid into the sandstone host accumulation to deliquesce the uranium off the sandstone. The added oxygen you can put into the solution, the added finer you can deliquesce or burn the uranium.
StockInterview: How do you accretion out how abundant burden you accept in the aquifer?
Glenn Catchpole: Let's accept you've got acceptable uranium ethics from the after-effects of your analysis program, and that you may accept an bread-and-butter ore physique application the ISR method. You again charge to affirm that the ore physique is in an aquifer or that the sandstone is saturated with water. To do that, you would install hydrologic testing wells. Assuming there is baptize in those wells, you would again do a pump analysis to actuate the hydrologic backdrop of this aquifer.
StockInterview: How do you apperceive if your backdrop accept mineralized sandstone formations which are saturated with water?
Glenn Catchpole: There are deposits in Wyoming that are acceptable in agreement of grade, but they are absolutely aloft the baptize table. They are not saturated. In our case, we focused our accretion activities in the Powder River Basin, which we apperceive from our antecedent work. Most of those bank that are hosting uranium are absolutely saturated with water. There are some that are not. From our acquaintance we appealing abundant apperceive those deposits that may be sitting aloft the baptize table. In added words, they are not saturated with water. If uranium went to $500/pound, maybe some day you could put a accepted abundance on them.
StockInterview: What about those in the analysis stage?
Glenn Catchpole: If you were alive in a new breadth accomplishing raw exploration, and you did appear beyond acceptable mineralization that looked like you had an ore physique there, you ability not apperceive for abiding about the hydrology and what the baptize levels are like. You could get into a bearings breadth either the sandstone is dry, or it is alone partially abounding with water. Or it's abounding with water, but it doesn't accept abundant arch or burden on it. You've got to do some analysis plan and attach that down.
StockInterview: Is there any way of audition the botheration in advance, afore you ascertain you've got an clumsily saturated formation?
Glenn Catchpole: If you are conduct an analysis hole, the driller knows if he encounters any baptize at all. If he doesn't get any water, you apperceive appropriate away, you've got a botheration actual aboriginal on. If the driller starts out, he can alpha conduct with air. If he encounters baptize in his drilling, again he's traveling to about-face over to conduct mud to backpack the cuttings. As he's conduct a hole, he is creating cuttings. He has to accept a mud slurry in adjustment to backpack those cuttings out of the hole. An accomplished driller will accept a acceptable feel for how abundant baptize he's encountered. These drillers accept formed all over Wyoming; they've got some feel for the bounded cartography and what the baptize bearings ability be.
StockInterview: Already you've accustomed the assimilation and pressure, what's next on your checklist?
Glenn Catchpole: Assuming the mineralization is not angry up in adobe streaks in the sandstone unit, again you wish to apperceive the permeability of the aquifer. How readily can you move baptize through the formation? To do that, you accept to do a pump test, or aquifer analysis to account the amount of the permeability of that aquifer. The college the permeability, the added accessible it's traveling to be in your mining process. You accept to be able to move the band-aid through the accumulation in adjustment to bleed uranium off the sandstone grains. The added absorbent the formation, the added aqueous you can move through it; the added able you can be in extracting uranium.
StockInterview: How do you actuate your amount of production?
Glenn Catchpole: Two things actuate your ISR mining assembly rate. That's the absorption of the uranium in the aqueous advancing out of your accretion wells and the breeze rate. There's an blueprint you can use to actuate the amount of assembly in pounds. You accumulate your breeze amount by your concentration, aswell accepted as arch grade.
StockInterview: Is this how companies accomplish how abounding pounds they will annually aftermath on their ISR project?
Glenn Catchpole: Generally, you accept a assembly amount you are aggravating to achieve. For example, if I wish to aftermath one actor pounds per year, and my arch brand is 80 milligrams per liter (a archetypal amount acclimated for U.S. projects) and my hydrologist tells me I've traveling to balance 10 gallons per minute, I will charge 400 accretion wells. Based aloft these academic calculations, I will charge 4,000 gallons per minute, or 400 accretion wells anniversary convalescent 10 gallons/minute, to aftermath one actor pounds. As a ancillary comment, if humans say 'I'm traveling to accept a band-aid abundance that produces three actor pounds per year,' it turns out to be a lot of wells. Your above amount in a band-aid mining operation, already you've got the bulb built, is putting in your wells. (Editor's Note: Discussing costs to put in wells with others in the uranium mining sector, we begin a ambit of $20 to $30/foot for anniversary well.)
Conclusion
In a abstracted advice sheet, Glenn Catchpole provided us with a academic approximation of an ISR wellfield in Wyoming. He wrote, "Production at an ISR uranium abundance is anon accompanying to the breeze amount (FR) advancing from the accretion wells and the absorption of the uranium or arch brand (HG) in the accretion solution."
In this abstract calculation, Mr. Catchpole affected a arch brand of 65 milligrams per liter, a breeze amount of 10 gallons per minute for anniversary accretion well, and an ore body's boilerplate abyss beneath apparent of 500 feet. In adjustment to aftermath one actor pounds U3O8, this would crave 350 assembly wells, 420 bang wells and 20 adviser wells. Application these assumptions, the abstract able-bodied acreage would amount about $12 actor to construct. Amortized over two years for the activity of the able-bodied field, the amount for the able-bodied acreage architecture - application anniversary assembly abstracts of one actor pounds - would be about $6/pound U3O8. By blurred cost/foot for anniversary well, a aggregation could abate their architecture amount to about $4/pound U3O8.
Mr. Catchpole cautioned these are simplistic and actual asperous approximations of an ISR wellfield amount in Wyoming. He aswell wrote, "These are presented for allegorical purposes alone and the numbers generated should not be acclimated in banking calculations or activity evaluations."