The Kintyre uranium project is located 60 km south of the Telfer gold mine and 260 km northeast of Newman at the western edge of the

Great Sandy Desert The Great Sandy Desert is an interim Australian bioregion,IBRA Version 6.1
data

in the East

Pilbara The Pilbara () is a large, dry, sparsely populated regions of Western Australia, region in the north of Western Australia. It is known for its Indigenous Australians, Aboriginal people; wealth disparity; its ancient landscapes; the prevailing r ...

region of

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

History

Uranium Uranium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Ura ...

was discovered in the Kintyre area in 1976 by Esso Minerals, which declined to develop the prospect. It was taken up by Rio Tinto as an exploration Licence in 1978, when it read Esso Minerals' report of the initial helicopter-borne survey by Geoffrey Iliff, Exploration Geologist of Esso Minerals. Due to depressed uranium prices CRA placed the project on care and maintenance in 1998. The camp was dismantled and the site rehabilitated in 2002. The deposit was initially within the

Karlamilyi National Park Karlamilyi National Park lies in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, northeast of Newman and north-northeast of Perth. Proclaimed an A Class Reserve on 13 April 1977, it is the largest national park in Western Australia. The park was in ...

, but the area enclosing the deposit was excised from the park in 1994. The Kintyre property was acquired in 2008 by a 70:30 joint venture between

Cameco Corporation Cameco Corporation (formerly Canadian Mining and Energy Corporation) is the world's largest publicly traded uranium company, based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. In 2015, it was the world's second largest uranium producer, accounting for 18 ...

and

Mitsubishi Corporation is a Japanese general trading company ( ''sogo shosha'') and a core member of the Mitsubishi Group. For much of the post-war period, Mitsubishi Corporation has been the largest of the five great ''sogo shosha'' (Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Itochu, S ...

. The project is operated by Cameco Australia Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cameco. The project has an indicated mineral resource of 3.9 million tonnes grading 0.62% U₃O₈, for a total of 53.5 million pounds of U₃O₈.

References

External links

*{{citation , title=Australia's Uranium Deposits and Potential Mines - Kintyre, WA , url=http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Australia_Mines/pmines.html#kintyre , publisher=World Nuclear Association , date=January 2012 , accessdate=2012-03-22 , archive-date=2011-03-19 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110319005343/http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Australia_Mines/pmines.html#kintyre , url-status=dead Mining in Western Australia Mineral exploration Uranium mining in Western Australia

History

See also

References

External links