A skeleton of steelwork loomed over ion exchange tanks at Smith Ranch-Highland’s new SR2 satellite plant. Blake Palmer, project manager for Russell Construction of Douglas, and Cameco restoration/reclamation engineer Catherine Bull checked out progress after heavy spring rains. Cameco expects the plant to be in operation by late summer.
Photo by Don Warfield
Still the one in uranium
Others talk, but Smith Ranch remains the sole producer in Wyoming
By Don Warfield
Staff Writer
Competition may be in the offing as the Wyoming uranium industry continues it rise from near death, but until the other guys actually bring something to market, Cameco’s Smith Ranch-Highland in-situ recovery operation will continue to be the state’s only producer.
Smith Ranch produces uranium oxide — “yellow cake” — from a permit area that encompasses parts of 85 square miles in Converse County. Seventeen-hundred injection wells push uranium solution to 900 production wells.
Last year, the operation shipped 1,984,267 pounds of U308 — Wyoming’s total production.
Cameo’s 109 employees and approximately 90 contractor employees about tripled all other uranium operations that reported to the state Inspector of Mines last year.
For 2008, Smith Ranch expects to produce about 1.8 million pounds, general manager Charles Foldenauer said. So far, at least, that makes Cameco the only game in Wyoming’s uranium town. But Cameco is not coasting.
A new satellite recovery station, SR2, is under construction southwest of the mine’s main complex. The satellite station ion exchangers will be capable of processing 4,500 gallons of solution per minute.
Approximately 500 cubic feet of impregnated resin will be transferred every other day from the satellite to the main plant for processing into yellow cake.
SR2 is expected to be in operation by the end of the summer, Foldenauer said.
It will soon be joined by a satellite restoration circuit as well. A new building is planned to house a 500-gallon-per-minute reverse osmosis unit and a selenium removal unit.
The new complex essentially will duplicate a unit operated at Smith Ranch’s main plant. It will augment the process by which ground water in the subject aquifer is cleansed of any unnatural levels of chemicals and the aquifer is returned to its natural condition.
U.W. partnership
Cameco has partnered with the University of Wyoming and research professor Kevin R. Chamberlain to improve the efficiency of in-situ recovery while beefing up protection for water quality.
Chamberlain’s protocol tracks fluid migration during the in-situ mining operation. It uses the distinct finger prints of the lead isotopic compositions of different fluid reservoirs (injection fluid, U-rich groundwaters and external monitoring well groundwaters) to detect any interactions between the three, Chamberlain said.
The knowledge gained could be used to improve efficiency in the mining process.
Chamberlain’s work also provides an additional, more precise method that may allow quicker detection of “excursion events” by improving monitoring and response for potential contaminations during mining.
“A true win-win for everyone,” Chamberlain said.
Gas Hills project
Cameco is moving in other locations, too. Pre-development drilling and detailed engineering are in progress for a project in the Gas Hills west of Casper. Actual development could come in about two years.
To the north and east, the company has plans for a third project called North Butte in the uranium-rich Pumpkin Butte region. Development is about three years in the future.
Work force growing in bentonite mines, mills
From staff reports
The industry employed 50 more workers in 2007, with total bentonite employment of 848.
Wyoming’s prosperous bentonite industry is racking up another year of solid production in 2008 after experiencing a mild downturn in total output in 2007 — a short-lived trend industry leaders expect to be fully reversed by the time 2008’s numbers are calculated.
Industry information supplied to the Wyoming State Inspector of Mines put 2007 tonnage at 5.89 million for ’07, down about 211,000 tons from the year before.
A production decline is rarely welcome news, but bentonite industry leaders say the decrease wasn’t significant statistically, and they point to a different stat which signals growth in 2008, not shrinkage, in the bentonite mines and plants: employment.
Indeed, the industry employed 50 more workers in 2007. The overall bentonite work force in 2007 was 848, compared to 798 a year earlier.
Outside contractors continued to be an important amendment to the work of the mines. The mine inspector logged 16 contractors linked to bentonite production, with 312 additional jobs tied to the safe mining, milling, packaging, shipping, research and development, and marketing of the “magic mud.”
American Colloid was the top producer of Wyoming bentonite for the year, mining 2.33 million tons at its three Wyoming mines and milling more than 1.8 million tons of raw material at processing centers.
Bentonite Performance Minerals, operating in both Colony and Lovell, dug 1.5 million tons of bentonite, while M-I SWACO’s Greybull mine and mill saw 882,808 tons from the ground, milling about 666,000 tons for the year.
Venerable Black Hills Bentonite mine nearly 750,000 tons and processed more than half a million tons through its various plants and mills in Casper, Mills and Worland.
Another familiar name in the mining lineup for the years is Wyo-Ben, also in Greybull, where the productive Stucco Mines produced more than 392,000 tons.
Two workers at the Bear Creek Mine in Big Horn County produced 30,000 tons for owner K.E. Tanner, with processing handled by an outside provider.
