Archive for the ‘ERA’ Category

With its share price collapse, ERA will shut down its Ranger uranium mine

April 28, 2012

Doncha love the headline from this Sydney Morning Herald article about the uranium company Energy Resources of Australia?  Anyone would think that the company had wonderful prospects.   But readthe lines (you don’t need to read between the lines) – and you see the true picture –  colossal share price loss, closure of the Ranger open pit mine, and a laughable future prospect for their plan for an underground uranium mine.

From a share price of $18.22 in May 2009, the stock lost more than 90 per cent of its value to be languishing at $1.15 earlier this year, with the company’s future being seriously questioned. 

Kakadu’s miner for all seasons SMH, Peter Ker April 28, 2012 After three decades as a major uranium producer in Australia’s top end, Atkinson’s company Energy Resources of Australia is about to fill in its massive open pit and return the landscape to something resembling the nearby Kakadu National Park.

In a reversal of the typical path taken by mining companies, ERA is about to go from producer to explorer, gambling its future on the viability of a deposit deep beneath its existing operations….

… ERA has spent the past 30 years digging uranium from a small province surrounded on all sides by Kakadu National Park. The company operates here at the grace of the indigenous community, which has long been reluctant to see any more of its land developed for mining. The NT’s extraordinary wet seasons add another
challenge,….. On more than one occasion, heavy rains halted production for months at a time and threatened [did!]  to spill toxic tailings into the nearby environment. Other operational problems also caused delays, and they unfolded
against a backdrop of decline in the company’s flagship Ranger open pit, now reaching the end of its working life.
From a share price of $18.22 in May 2009, the stock lost more than 90 per cent of its value to be languishing at $1.15 earlier this year, with the company’s future being seriously questioned…… (more…)

But can ERA afford the costs of shutting down Ranger uranium mine?

April 28, 2012

Era adds A$251m to Ranger closure plan  By: Esmarie Swanepoel, Mining Weekly, 11th April 2012 PERTH   - The CEO of uranium miner Energy Resources of Australia (Era), Rob Atkinson on Wednesday told shareholders that the company had increased the provision for the closure of its Ranger mine, in the Northern Territory, from A$314-million to A$565-million, following a desktop review.

At the company’s annual general meeting, Atkinson said that the miner would continue investigating its closure plan during the remainder of 2012…… He noted that the revised plan would support a review of the rehabilitation cost estimate, later this year.

Quiet shutdown of Ranger uranium mine is on the cards

April 28, 2012

Spot Uranium Grafting, 9 News Finance, 13 April 12,    ”………Activity in general remains sluggish, and while two transactions were reported last week in the term market they were both pretty small by term market standards…

..Energy Resources of Australia managed a 5% price increase over the quarter but remains in thebalance. The company has elected to spend $120m to explore the underground potential at its premier Ranger mine in the northern territory, known as the Ranger Deeps project.

If ERA decides the Deeps is not a commercially viable proposition, Ranger is destined to quietly shut down. Merrills suggests known reserves are unlikely to last beyond this year and stockpiles would be gone in 3-4 years.
Meanwhile, Merrills has ceased coverage of Extract Resources post takeover and its impending de-listing this week.

The broker has also taken the opportunity to review its uranium price forecasts to account for weaker Japanese demand now apparent one year after Fukushima. The analysts’ 2012 spot price forecast falls to US$56.25/lb from US$58.50/lb and 2013 to US$67.50/lb from US$70.00/lb. Merrills’ long term price drops to US$63.00/lb from US$65.00/lb.  …
http://finance.ninemsn.com.au/newscolumnists/greg/8449091/spot-uranium-grafting

The woes of Energy Resources of Australia leading to closure of Ranger uranium mine

April 28, 2012

ERA tightens 2012 guidance,  Colin Jacoby , 10 April 2012 …The uranium miner Energy Resources of Australia  reported production of 612 tonnes of uranium oxide for the March quarter, down 41% from its December 2011 quarter production of 1030t.. The company was dogged by high rainfall at Ranger and access to high-grade ore was restricted due to the water level in the pit.

With ERA unable to access the high-grade ore located at the bottom of the pit, the ore milled during the quarter was sourced from stockpiled material. …  the company said 2012 production remained highly dependent on the level of rainfall for the remainder of the year.

Kakadu uranium miner faces growing criticism. ACF,  11 April 12Mining at the troubled Ranger uranium operation in Kakadu has been described as dirty, dangerous and desperate by the Environment Centre NT and the Australian Conservation Foundation. The groups have used Energy Resources of Australia annual meeting today in Darwin to re-affirm their concerns about uranium mining inside the World Heritage listed Kakadu National Park.

”ERA’s open cut mine has seen over 150 leaks, spills and breaches; radioactive exposure to workers; mismanagement of water and a mine shutdown that resulted in a $150 million dollar loss last year. The mine continues to pose ongoing environmental risk to Kakadu and the creation of more unwanted and poorly managed radioactive waste,” said Environment Centre NT campaigner Cat Beaton.

“Much of that waste is stored in an overloaded tailings dam that continues to leak over 100,000 litres of contaminated water a day.” Continued Ms Beaton.

In recent years ERA’s controversial Ranger mine has been plagued by declining production, morale and profit, with operations severely impacted by severe weather events. The company is attempting to reverse this decline by moving away from open cut mining in favour of underground mining.

“ERA’s fortunes are in systemic decline and will not be turned around by a tunnel to nowhere,” said ACF nuclear campaigner Dave Sweeney. “In the shadow of Fukushima – which we know was fuelled by Australian uranium – we need an open assessment of the costs and consequences of the uranium trade, not piecemeal approvals of short term projects that generate long term risks and problems”. “Uranium mining is unclean and unsafe, and this industry remains contaminating and contested”. Concluded Mr. Sweeney.

Extreme weather played havoc with ERA’s uranium mining – its future indefinite

February 26, 2012

Toxic year for ERA unlikely to get better, SMH, Peter Ker, February 2, 2012 THE struggling uranium miner Energy Resources Australia has underwhelmed the market with its production forecasts, raising fears its poor year last year could continue into this one.
The stock plunged almost 14 per cent yesterday after the company, majority owned by Rio Tinto, revealed a $153.6 million loss for the year to December 31. The result, despite being 427 per cent worse than the previous year, came as no surprise. The company’s Ranger mine was shut down for much of last year, and a massive depreciation of assets had already been
announced in August.
The bigger surprise for the market came when ERA forecast production of between 3000 and 3700 tonnes of uranium oxide this year, well below the 4100 tonnes forecast by analysts at Goldman Sachs.
Production figures at Ranger are highly dependent on the weather. Water management problems during the Northern Territory’s wet season often cause interruptions.
There was record rainfall in December, and ERA warned that its underwhelming production forecasts could be further affected if bad weather returned.
The ERA board has approved spending of $220 million on a brine concentrator, which will help mitigate its water problems. ERA’s future rests on hopes of finding uranium deposits beneath the Ranger open cut and turning it into an underground mine. Investors will have to wait until 2014 before knowing if the project, known as Ranger Deeps, will proceed.
ERA shares fell 21¢ to $1.33 yesterday….. Hopes that Rio Tinto will come to the rescue of another ASX-listed
uranium company, Extract Resources, appear dashed after Rio sold a strategic investment to state-owned Chinese interests.  http://www.smh.com.au/business/toxic-year-for-era-unlikely-to-get-better-20120201-1qtgb.html#ixzz1lFkRZG00

Ranger uranium mine in danger of floods

January 29, 2012

Australia’s ERA warns rains to hit uranium output again SYDNEY, Jan 12 (Reuters) – Energy Resources of Australia warned on Thursday that recent flooding caused by monsoon rains in northern Australia will continue to restrict its production of uranium in 2012.

Production at the company’s Ranger mine — which in previous years supplied as much as 10 percent of the world’s uranium — was halted by heavy rains in early in 2011 and did not resume until mid-June.

A second deluge in December that dumped record rains across parts of the tropical Northern Territory meant ERA would be unable to readily mine richer ores at the bottom of the lode, it said.

“As a result, access to the high grade ore located at the bottom of the pit will be delayed and is highly dependent on rainfall
experienced for the remainder of the 2011/2012 wet season,” said ERA, 68 percent owned by Rio Tinto but separately listed on the Australian bourse….. Analyst are expecting the company to show a loss on earnings before interest and tax of around A$61 million against a profit of A$68.4 million in 2010.

The stock has plummeted more than 80 percent in the last 12 months, in part due to negative sentiment toward uranium companies following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan last March…..
http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL3E8CB8ZU20120111?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0

Uranium prices falling steadily over past year

January 2, 2012

Fukushima affects uranium stocks, Star Tribune, 18 DecShare prices of global uranium majors continue to suffer the aftereffects of an earthquake and tsunami that rocked Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant last March.
That’s the assessment of Sydney, Australia-based Resource Capital Research, which noted share prices for selected companies have declined substantially.
An analysis noted that Cameco shares declined by nearly 50 percent over the past year, while Uranium One shares had dropped by nearly 45 percent. Energy Resources of Australia stock fell by 82.1 percent.
“The Merril Lynch Uranium Equity Index (a global basket of uranium equities) is down 2 percent over the past month, down 7 percent over three months and down 54 percent over the past 12 months,” the firm said in a report earlier this month. …..
The uranium spot price was pegged at $52.25, down from $67.75 prior to the Fukushima disaster. In the near-term, Resource Capital Research said Fukushima will continue to weigh on the market, “including Germany’s decision to
close reactors and the potential for disposal of surplus utility inventory.”…..

Australia’s National Register of radiation doses does not count Northern Territory uranium workers

October 30, 2011

NT URANIUM WORKERS STILL NOT ON NATIONAL REGISTER, GREENS SAY, Safe To Work, By Cole Latimer  20 October 2011  Uranium miners in the Northern Territory are still not on the National Radiation Dose Register, Greens senator Scott Ludlam says.  It comes five months after Ludlam originally brought the issue to bear in May, with Ludlam today again quizzing representatives from the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency on this issue.

“In July 2010 the register began collecting data on the radiation doses to which workers had been exposed. There are now over 18,000 workers on the database – covering about five years – but there is no information at all on the radiation workers have been exposed to at the Ranger Mine in the Northern Territory. We revealed this in May, and urged the Territory and Federal authorities to address it. ARPANSA told us today that nothing has changed, and to raise the issue with the office of energy and resources minister Martin Ferguson,” Ludlam said in a recent statement.

“We will write to Northern Territory Chief Minister Paul Henderson to encourage urgent action to fix this problem.”  The national register was created as a central database to track radiation dose histories of miners….. Under this new development, information on radiation doses will be sent to a central register, where miners can then access their personal records.

“Excluding work in the Northern Territory is a huge crack in the system, and it was revealed five months ago and NT uranium mine workers are still off the radiation dose radar. The system will only have integrity if all radiation doses are included,” Ludlam says…..  http://www.safetowork.com.au/news/nt-uranium-workers-still-not-on-national-register

Uranium miner Energy Resources of Australia desperate for shareholders to provide $500 million

October 16, 2011

ERA begging for $500m boost, The Age Barry FitzGerald October 13, 2011 THE fall from grace of Rio Tinto-controlled Energy Resources of Australia has become absolute, with the Ranger uranium miner going cap in hand to shareholders for $500 million in equity funding in a heavily discounted rights issue.

The 12-for-7 underwritten issue of new shares at $1.53 a share represents a near 30 per cent discount on ERA’s share price before the stock went into a trading halt. The funds will go a long way to overcoming ERA’s water-handling issues, as well as funding potential mine life-extending activities…..  Rio is also to act as sub-underwriter to the equity raising. Should that role be fully utilised, its holding in ERA could increase to 82 per cent, reducing liquidity in what is an already thinly traded stock.

ERA has been producing uranium at Ranger for 30 years and is only the second mine in the world to have produced more than 100,000 tonnes of uranium. But its shares have been in free fall for the past 12 months on the realisation that despite the long production history, it has not been on top of the environmental threat that a record big wet in Kakadu poses.

The build-up of water around the mine and in its pits forced the decision in January to suspend processing operations as a ”precautionary measure” to ensure levels in the operation’s tailings storage dam remained below the authorised limit. More rain forced a further suspension to late July…..

Rio’s decision to back ERA’s equity raising suggests Rio is confident that ERA’s Jabiluka deposit near Ranger might one day be developed.

Jabiluka is one of the biggest undeveloped uranium deposits in the world but its development is being vetoed by traditional owners.     http://www.theage.com.au/business/era-begging-for-500m-boost-20111012-1ll13.html#ixzz1ahltBWq2

Rio Tinto tries to put on a cheerful face about uranium industry’s future

October 4, 2011

Rio Tinto hopes for a short nuclear slowdown, The Australian, Dow Jones Newswires , September 23, 2011 JAPAN’S Fukushima nuclear accident in March has damaged the credibility of the uranium mining industry and will slow nuclear power growth for up to two years, predicts a Rio Tinto executive…..

The medium-term outlook for uranium, the key fuel for nuclear reactors, remains clouded in the wake of the Fukushima crisis.The crisis began in March when explosions crippled the Fukushima reactor complex following the country’s devastating earthquake and tsunami. Rio Tinto is a major uranium producer via its majority ownership of Energy Resources of Australia and the huge Rossing Uranium mine in Namibia….

Mr Lloyd said that, in addition to uncertainty about demand, the “high capital cost” of new nuclear reactors might be an issue for the sector as it sought to attract funding in coming years. ……http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/rio-tinto-hopes-for-a-short-nuclear-slowdown/story-e6frg9df-1226144025698


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