News

June 09, 2009

Mining At Nimrodel’s Newest Uranium Project In Kyrgyzstan Is Shaping Up To Be A Simple Backhoe Exercise

By Our Man in Oz

Uranium mining is supposed to be a complex business. So it was curious recently when the chief executive of a small company described the mining process at a recently acquired project as a “backhoe exercise”, and the processing as “a walk in the park”. Those colourful descriptions from the boss of Australia-based Nimrodel Resources, John Hebenton, apply to the Kamushanovskoe uranium deposit in northern Kyrgyzstan. In fact, he could have gone further in singing the praises of the latest tongue-twisting Kyrgyz venture of Nimrodel, including mention of the remarkably low capital cost, access to an ex-Soviet uranium production facility which will keep processing costs down, and direct access to uranium-hungry China via the long land border China shares with Kyrgyzstan.

The secret to Kamushanovskoe (actually, let’s do the Aussie thing and abbreviate it to Kamu in all future references) is the nature of orebody, peat. Yes, the uranium at Kamu is contained in the same stuff they burn for heat in Ireland. In fact, burning the peat could be one stage in Nimrodel’s separation process, though deciding how to get the uranium out is currently one of the issues under consideration. “We’re looking at that question right now,” Hebenton told Minesite’s Man in Oz in his...