The Project
Uranium mining operations are shifting gear to enhance safety, reduce environmental impact, minimise hazards and cut costs. Instead of traditional, disruptive open-pit mining, in-situ recovery (ISR) offers a more sustainable approach. This innovative method extracts uranium through boreholes, minimising environmental impact.
Technical Solutions
Boss Energy, in collaboration with WGA, set out to develop an innovative machine learning-based approach to identify ISR deposits, a novel application in this context. WGA championed the model development using an industry-leading machine learning approach. This new tool aids estimating reserves and predicts future uranium extraction at exploration phase, employing faster algorithms compared to traditional methods.
The model utilises data from special tools used to explore underground and helps determine how suitable a deposit is for leaching. The leaching process involves injecting chemicals into the earth layer containing ore, dissolving the minerals and extracting the solution to the surface.
Client Focus
The ability to accurately predict uranium recoverability not only improves production planning and well field development techniques, but also provides a cost-effective method. The model has the potential to be used for wellfield planning, cost optimisation, and operational control – at Boss Energy’s Honeymoon site and other sites – and could be deployed in other similar processes, such as heap leach.
With this new model, we’re leading the way in offering a unique and affordable answer to the problem.
Finalist: Premiers Awards in Energy and Mining, Innovation and Collaboration Award 2023 – Check out our award nominee video!
Key Personnel
The In-Situ Recovery Modelling using Machine Learning is included in the following sectors & services.
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