Mining operations with low environmental impacts

From raw rock to uranium concentrates

Located 70 kilometers northeast of Swakopmund, the Trekkopje site extends over an area 14 kilometers long by 3 kilometers wide. The deposit is shallow, so it can be exploited with an open pit mine. To recover the uranium, miners will first remove the overburden from the deposit, then drill and use explosives to extract the ore. The ore will then be transported to the processing area.

The low uranium content and other characteristics of the ore have led AREVA to choose a uranium extraction process suited to this type of deposit: alkaline heap leaching.

• Following extraction, the rock will be crushed, finely ground and heaped up on a collector system over an area more than 3 kilometers long and 810 meters wide.
• The ore will first be rinsed with fresh water for a period of 40 days to remove chlorides.
• Next, the ore will be leached with diluted alkaline solutions. In this operation, the solutions will seep through the heap of ore and gradually dissolve the uranium.
• The resulting uranium-bearing solution will be filtered using a special technology, the Nimcix ion exchange process.
• Following the removal of any impurities, a drying process will be used to recover the uranium in the form of uranium concentrate, or yellowcake.
• The yellowcake will then be packaged for shipment to the conversion plants of AREVA’s customers.

The pilot phase will continue until 2012, with a final production of more than 400 tons of uranium, a worldwide first in similar geological conditions. It has already allowed optimization of certain design and operational parameters for the mine. At the end of this phase, the calendar for putting the mine into production will be determined according conditions in the uranium market.