Pilot Testing VAT/HEAP Leaching Technology of Uraniferous Cobble Ore at Key Lake

Abstract

Key Lake Mining Corporation extracts uranium ore from two orebodies at its site at Key Lake in Northern Saskatchewan. In addition, ore in overburden above the Gaertner orebody was present in till and esker material containing ore clasts with diameters from a few millimetres to approximately one meter. Close to 800 , 000 tonnes of this so called cobble ore with an average grade of 0.5% has been mined and stored separately from the direct mill feed ore. Satisfactory results from heap leach bench scale and 100 tonne column tests led to the subject of this paper, a 10,000 tonne vat-leach pilot test.