67 Beverley Uranium Project
See also - Information on the new proposal for Beverley. This is situated in South Australia, and otherwise known as Lake Frome.
It is administered by the South Australian Uranium Corporation, and owned by Western Nuclear (subsidiary of Phelps Dodge) 50.00%, Oilmin NL (AUS) 16.66%, Petromin NL (AUS) 16.66%, Transoil NL (AUS)16.66%.
These are estimated reserves of around 16,000 tonnes of U3O8 and further reserves of around 7000 tonnes in a separate orebody, at fairly high grading. Finance to develop the site was to be provided by Western Nuclear, with in situ leaching. Hydrological testing was underway in 1981 (1).
Between 1982 and 2011 the partners had expected to spend US$515 million in the building, running and rehabilitation of the mine, producing just over 11,000 tons of uranium oxide.
A second well field was to be built in 1984, and a central processing plant and full-scale production was to commence in 1986. Five years would be given to rehabilitation (2).
However, when the Australian Labour Part came to power in the state in 1983, the mine was suspended, and - of 1984 - despite a severely compromised ALP policy on uranium mining, it looked s if the mine would never be opened. The partners applied for a "retention lease" on the site in March 1983 (3).
In 1982, CANE, the South Australian (SA) anti-nuclear group, published a critique of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement on Beverley, prepared by the four partners.
CANE criticised the project from a number of points of view:
The price assumed for sales of yellowcake would be twice the then-current spot price, with no guaranteed contracts: the economic viability of the project was therefore "in serious doubt".
The partners' bland assurance that contamination of underground aquifers would not occur during mining was belied by contradictory statements and evidence that contamination in the Willaworrina aquifers was likely. The extent of seepage of radioactive water from the aquifers could not be accurately determined.
The partners' assurance that in situ leaching was a well-tried and tested method was not borne out by experience in the USA. In particular, seepage from Wyoming Minerals' Lakewood, Colorado mine had caused "unexpected groundwater contamination", revealing previously unidentified sources of leakage and other problems (4). In 1979, in order to gain an entry into the Beverley deposit, entrepreneur Alan Bond of the Bond Corp bid for 14% of Oilmin, 17.5& of Petromin, and 8% of Transoil (5).
By the late 1980s, the Australian ownership in Beverley had slightly changed, with the Transoil, Oilmin and Petromin holdings amalgamated into a single 50% holding (6). It is worth noting that Moonie Oil, a Brisbane-based exploration and investment company, is closely associated with three Bjelke-Petersen clones (as of 1983, holding 25.8% in Transoil NL, 23.2% in Oilmin NL, and 9.1% of Petromin NL, (7).
SOURCE: "The Gulliver File - Mines, people and land: a global battleground" by Roger Moody.
Published in 1992 by Minewatch, 218 Liverpool Road, London Nl ILE, UK, and WISE-Glen Aplin, Po Box 87, Glen Aplin Q 4381, Australia.
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Page last updated December 6, 1997.
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