This is a small but important uranium site in South Australia with an estimated 3,400 tonnes of uranium oxide reserves which was due to be mined at about 450 tonnes/year from 1985.

Its ownership is: Carpentaria Exploration Co Pty Ltd,49.0%; Mines Administration Pty Ltd, 25.5%; Teton Australia Pty Ltd, 25.5%; (3.8% of Honeymoon was originally held by CRA but sold to AAR during the reorganisation of IOL/CSR holdings in March 1980).

The companies expected to start major construction in 1982 - though in the teeth of strenuous opposition. For example, in 1981 the Broken Hill City Council (nearest city to the mine) announced that it would oppose transportation of uranium through the council's area (1).

The Australian federal government gave the go-ahead in October 1981. However, in early 1983, the South Australian Labor government decided to halt development at Honeymoon (and Beverley) taking into account - as the Minister for Mines and Energy put it - the economic, social, environmental and safety aspects of the mine. The partners were still permitted to keep a lease on the site and preserve their investment (2).

The comments - sour-grapeish as they are - of the editors of the Register of Australian Mines on the apparent collapse of the Honeymoon project are worth quoting in full:

"Production: Honeymoon was advanced to the pilot stage following leaching trials in 1982, and became a target for the Campaign Against Nuclear Energy whose disciples gained the eye of the general press by going to the site and also claiming that leach testing had contaminated the groundwater. Though the then new State Labor Government found no evidence of this, it took the political move of deciding not to grant the partners a production licence, but made a token compromise of granting the partners a Retention Licence over the area.

"Comment: The decision was a victory for the vocal minority in the conservation movement, and while Honeymoon was being singled out because it was planning to apply a leaching technique, many have read this as a body blow to getting some of Australia's major uranium projects into operation. AAR's David Brunt commented that the project had proceeded to strict environmental conditions laid down by the SA and Canberra governments. In making the announcement, the SA Mines Department and Senator Peter Walsh both skirted the real politics behind the issue and made some amazing statements on the uranium marketplace and their responsibility to it ... this included the implication that Honeymoon was being halted to protect the future of Roxby Downs (which will have the same problems with the anti-league, even though it is the only project that can rescue SA from its prolonged economic mire) and Senator Walsh's statement that "economics alone dictate that new mining ventures at the present time would be unwise". As Australia's procrastination has already given other nations the edge on uranium marketing- aided by the effective, scaremongering campaign of the anti-uranium lobby - these sort of comments just add to the great Australian uranium marketing tragedy. The power of the public services to give government control over uranium projects has them enmeshed in a red tape that would be constrictive even in a more realistic political environment. The Honeymoon partners announced they would be seeking compensation from the SA Government" (3).

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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