Expertise
Uranium
SNC-Lavalin has designed and built successful uranium projects around the world using a wide variety of technologies. We are able to offer project development services from the earliest scoping studies through to plant commissioning and start-up.
Our expertise covers not only the production facilities for uranium but also the industries that support uranium such as nuclear power generation power plants and sulphuric acid plants. Our expertise covers the spectrum of the nuclear fuel cycle.
Our uranium expertise includes extensive process plant experience covering the full range of recovery techniques and unit processes from mineral processing to yellowcake production.
Specific areas of expertise include the following:
- Mineral processing
- Leaching
- Slurry washing
- Solution purification and concentration
- Yellowcake precipitation and drying
- Acid production
Olympic Dam Expansion - Australia
SNC-Lavalin in joint venture was contracted by BHP Billiton to provide prefeasibility study services for the ore processing facilities of this large expansion project.
Olympic Dam Expansion - Australia
SNC-Lavalin in joint venture was contracted by BHP Billiton to provide prefeasibility study services for the ore processing facilities of this large expansion project.
The prefeasibility study investigated the expansion of the Olympic Dam facility to increase annual production to the following targets:
- 40 Mtpa mined ore
- 500,000 tpa copper
- 15,000 tpa uranium oxide
- 500,000 oz gold per year, and
- 2,900,000 oz silver per year
The scope of the contract included provision of engineering services to provide the following main components:
- Establishment of a common platform of engineering standards and systems to be used across the project.
- A single go forward design of the ore processing facilities consisting of the following five main areas: concentrator, hydrometallurgical facility, smelter, refinery and ore processing infrastructure and utilities.
- Consolidated OPEX and CAPEX estimates for the PFS.
-
Applicable inputs to the PFS Report for the ore processing facilities.
Ranger Laterite Processing Plant - Australia
The project consisted of design and construction of a laterite processing plant at the Ranger Uranium Mine producing 400 tpa of U3O8.
Ranger Laterite Processing Plant - Australia
ERA (Energy Resources Australia) is a subsidiary of Rio Tinto and exports uranium oxide to Asia and North America. ERA is the third largest uranium producer in the world. The facility is located 260km SE of Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia.
SNC-Lavalin carried out the feasibility study for ERA which after successful completion awarded the EPCM services contract to SNC-Lavalin for the implementation of the Uranium Laterite Processing Plant which consists of the following:
- A ball mill followed by a trommel with the coarse from trommel (nominal +10 mm) conveyed back to a rejects stockpile and middlings (-10, +1mm) transferred to a single deck screen feeding into a vertical crusher feeding back into the ball mill.
- Scrubbing circuit fines (- 1 mm) separated at the screen, pumped to a thickener and the thickener underflow slurry is pumped into a two tank laterite leach circuit which is part of the existing primary ore leach train. The thickener overflow is recycled back to the mill.
-
The laterite leach slurry overflows from the second tank into the ground primary ore coarse leach stream (cyclone underflow) and then contacts fine ore stream in downstream leach train. The mix slurry eventually reports to the recovery circuit at the CCD1thickener. There is also provision for direct gravity overflow discharge of the laterite slurry to the CCD1 thickener, where required through separate piping.