Ranger Uranium Mine – The End of an Era
Australia has approximately one third of the world's uranium resources and in 2020 was the world's second ranking producer. Until 8 January 2021, there were three operational uranium mines in Australia: Ranger in the Northern Territory (NT), and Olympic Dam and Beverley Four Mile in South Australia. That number has now been reduced with the cessation of mining and processing activities at Ranger Mine in January 2021.
Ranger Mine was Australia's longest continually operating uranium mine, which provided international customers in the global energy market with a safe and reliable supply of uranium ore concentrate (U3O8, or UOC) for the four decades since production began. Ranger Mine produced in excess of 132,000 tonnes of UOC, making it one of three mines in the world to produce more than 120,000 tonnes. Approximately half of all the UOC exported by Australia was produced by the Ranger Mine. Ranger has also been a major local employer, catalyst for the establishment of the town of Jabiru and significantly underpinned the local economy.
Figure 1: Location of the ERA Ranger Mine in the Northern Territory.
Courtesy: ERA Annual Report 2019, https://www.energyres.com.au/uploads/docs/2019_Annual_Report.pdf
Ranger Mine played a key role in Australia's uranium industry over the past 50 years. The Ranger ore bodies were discovered in 1969 by the Electrolytic Zinc Company of Australasia and Peko-Wallsend Operations Limited. In 1980, Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) was established and floated on the Australian Stock Exchange in what was at the time the largest public float in Australian history.
Mine operations commenced in 1981 and the first drum of uranium oxide was produced in the same year, using ore from the open cut mine, Pit 1. Mining of Pit 1 finished in December 1994, having yielded 19.78 million tonnes of ore. Mining from Pit 3 commenced in July 1997 and concluded in November 2012.
Ranger Mine processing facilities: An aerial view of the Ranger Mine during operation showing the processing facilities in the foreground and the stockpiles in the background.
(Courtesy ERA, https://www.energyres.com.au/media/gallery/)
The Ranger Mine operational infrastructure lies within the 79 square kilometre Ranger Project Area, which is located eight kilometres east of Jabiru and 260 kilometres east of Darwin, NT. The Ranger mine is on Aboriginal land, with the Mirarr people the traditional owners. ERA has access to the Ranger Project Area under a suite of agreements with and between the Commonwealth Government and the Northern Land Council. The Ranger Project Area is located in the Alligator Rivers Region and is surrounded by the World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park. ERA's Mine Closure Plan details the rehabilitation activities it will conduct by January 2026, before transitioning into a post-works monitoring program.
Regulatory Activities
The Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office (ASNO) oversees the protection of Australia's nuclear facilities, nuclear material and associated items against unauthorised access and sabotage, including Australia's uranium destined to be sent overseas. Throughout the years of Ranger Mine operation, ASNO has undertaken a suite of regulatory activities, with the co-operation of the mine, to ensure that national and international requirements are met.
ASNO operates Australia's state system of accounting for and control of nuclear material in accordance with Australia's Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement and Additional Protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and specific enabling national legislation.
The IAEA conducted inspections at Ranger Mine four times, in 1999, 2009, 2012 and 2017, in accordance with standard arrangements under Australia's Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement and the Additional Protocol. In March 2017 for example, an inspection was conducted at the Ranger uranium mine and ASNO officers facilitated access for the IAEA inspectors in accordance with conditions specified in ERA's permits issued under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (Safeguards) Act 1987. ASNO staff accompanied the IAEA inspectors during all activities.
ASNO and IAEA inspectors at Ranger Uranium Mine during the March 2017 inspection.
ASNO also periodically conducted routine inspections of the Ranger uranium mine security and accountancy arrangements as required by the permit issued under the Safeguards Act, for example in 2017 and 2019. Such inspections included a review of security roles, responsibilities and plans, transport procedures, risk management, access and accountancy of uranium ore concentrate.
The Ranger uranium mine exported its last shipment of uranium ore concentrate in 2021 and the mine is currently in decommissioning. ASNO is continuing in its regulatory role during this process including granting of a permit to decommission a facility. ASNO's focus during decommissioning is to ensure the removal of nuclear safeguarded material and that the plant is unable to produce more UOC following the removal of equipment and reagents. ASNO inspected the mine in June 2021 to confirm that the decommissioning process was well underway and that safeguarded material was being appropriately handled.
Ranger Mine decommissioning underway during June 2021 inspection.
Top left: Counter-current decanters empty and clean. Top right: product pad empty. Bottom left: milling area decommissioned and flushed. Bottom right: decommissioned areas clearly indicated.
ASNO inspectors at Ranger Uranium Mine, June 2021 for inspection of decommissioning activities.
Australia's uranium export policy (see Uranium Exports and Production) was announced in 1977, prior to the opening of the Ranger Mine in 1981. A key element of that policy is that uranium can only be exported to countries that have a bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement (NCA) with Australia; all uranium exported from the Ranger Mine has been subject to these agreements. Australian uranium and nuclear material generated through the use of that uranium is designated as Australian Obligated Nuclear Material (AONM) and subject to obligations pursuant to Australia's bilateral NCAs. Energy Resources of Australia had a sales and marketing agreement with Rio Tinto Uranium pursuant to which ERA's product was sold to international power utilities under strict international and Australian Government safeguards thereby ensuring that Australian uranium is only used for peaceful purposes.
Throughout the operation of the Ranger Mine, ERA contributed to the development of safeguards and non-proliferation expertise both domestically and internationally. ERA has supported Australia's nuclear safeguards and non-proliferation objectives by hosting site visits and delegations from bilateral partners. Ranger Mine has also provided both data and samples to safeguards and security focused research projects, including projects managed through the Australian Safeguards Support Program (one of 21 programs established by IAEA Member States to assist the IAEA in safeguards research and development). These contributions influenced the development of international approaches to safeguarding uranium mines and promoted, globally, Australia's best practice regulation of nuclear safeguards and nuclear security for the uranium industry.
The IAEA's visit to Ranger in 1999 was the first ever complementary access inspection under the new Additional Protocol arrangements, which Australia was the first country to sign in December 1997. Given the short notice, only circuitous flights from Sydney to Darwin via Brisbane and Cairns could be organised. The drive to the accommodation selected by the inspectors took a further two hours but was still 50 km from the Ranger mine at Jabiru. Later, the inspectors explained that the motel had looked much closer to Jabiru on the maps obtained from the Internet which they had used for planning purposes back in Vienna.1
Over its 41-year operating history, ERA exported more than 133,000 tonnes of UOC, in a total of 829 shipments to 12 different converters in nine countries. These exports would have produced electricity equivalent to half of Australia's generation over that time.
IAEA inspector taking notes from the Ranger Mine control board and collecting samples from the tailings dam during a complementary access inspection under the Additional Protocol on 28 June 1999. (Photos courtesy of ERA).
1 https://www.dfat.gov.au/about-us/publications/international-relations/asno-annual-report-1998-1999/index.html/asno-annual-report-1998-99/ct_iaea.html
