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The discovery of the Kintyre uranium deposit in 1985 was made by Rio Tinto Exploration Pty Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto Limited. The company's ongoing investigations of the Rudall River area began in 1972 and they remain responsible for identifying the geological potential of the region.
Rio Tinto Exploration employs about 100 geoscientists and is one of Australia's largest explorers. From its Western Region office in Perth, the company conducts several large-scale exploration programmes in the western half of Australia.
Canning Resources Pty Ltd
The development of the proposed Kintyre uranium mine was the responsibility of Canning Resources Pty Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto Ltd.
Canning Resources was a small team of engineering and commercial specialists based in Perth. The company conducted feasibility and development studies on energy resources in Western Australia.
Its work on the Kintyre project included the planning and conducting of a number of background environmental studies. It also commissioned studies by external consultants into process technologies, mining strategies and techniques for extracting the uranium ore from the waste rock.
The company was wound up in 2000 and the project handed back to Rio Tinto Exploration.
Rio Tinto Limited
Rio Tinto Limited is part of the Rio Tinto Group, the world's largest mining enterprise. The Group was formed in December 1995, when CRA Limited and The RTZ Corporation PLC form a A$26.7 billion group under a Dual Listed Companies structure. Each company retains its national identity, stock exchange listing and share register in its own country. CRA Limited then changed it's name to Rio Tinto Limited.
The Group includes wholly and partly owned companies, with interest in copper, iron ore, coal, titanium dioxide feedstock, aluminium, gold, diamonds, salt and other minerals. Rio Tinto's world-wide operations comprise exploration, mining, mineral processing, research and development, and marketing activities.
The diverse range of mines and processing facilities controlled by the Group are world-class and generally low-cost. At the present rate of production, the company's ore reserves are sufficient to support existing operations well into the next century.
A sustained programme of exploration and research and development is also securing future growth. In addition to uranium, the company has made significant new discoveries of coal, heavy minerals and gold, ensuring that Rio Tinto will add new operations to its portfolio in the next decade and beyond.
Rio Tinto and Uranium
Rio Tinto has had extensive experience in the uranium industry, having been involved in uranium exploration, mining and rehabilitation almost continuously since 1952. In that year, the company Rio Tinto, was appointed/commissioned by the Federal Government to manage the Rum Jungle mine in the Northern Territory.
However, Rio Tinto's main involvement with uranium in Australia has been through Mary Kathleen Uranium Ltd (MKU). In 1955, Rio Tinto (later to merge with Consolidated Zinc to form CRA, which became Rio Tinto) decided to bring into production the Mary Kathleen uranium deposits, discovered just a year earlier in Queensland. In 1956, the UK Atomic Energy Authority contracted to purchase 4,080 tonnes of uranium concentrate, and in June 1958 - only 27 months later - a uranium mine was brought into production and a complete town was constructed near the site.
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Production continued until 1963, when the contracts were fulfilled, and the operations were then placed on a care and maintenance programme. However, the search for new markets continued and in the early 1970's new contracts were obtained. Production of concentrates was recommenced in 1976. MKU's contracts in the 1970s and 1980s included deliveries to power utilities in Japan, the United States and Europe. By 1982, with contracted tonnages produced and reserves diminished to uneconomic levels, operations ceased at the Mary Kathleen mine. By the end of the mine's second life, 8,800 tonnes of U3O8 had been produced. |
MKU has successfully rehabilitated the Mary Kathleen operations to the highest environmental standards, at a cost of about $19 million. The rehabilitation of the Mary Kathleen Uranium Mine was awarded the 1988 Engineering Excellence Award by the Institution of Engineers, Australia. Since the mid 1970s, uranium has remained one of the target commodities in Rio Tinto's exploration that has led to the delineation of the Kintyre deposit and the identification of the uranium potential of the Rudall region. The development of the proposed Kintyre uranium project will further extend Rio Tinto's impressive record in uranium and add significantly to the wealth of Australia. | |