Salamanca development paves way for construction

Tuesday, 11 October 2016

Infrastructure development is under way at Berkeley Energia's Salamanca uranium project as the company prepares for main construction at the Spanish site next year.

Road construction under way at Salamanca  (Image: Berkeley Energia)

Berkeley said today that development began at the project in August. Work is now under way to construct a 5.2 kilometre road deviation and a raw water dam as well as developing pedestrian footpaths, secure cattle paths and the installation of a wifi network for local villagers, part of the company's commitment to improve local community infrastructure. A contract for rerouting a main powerline has been awarded to Iberdrola.

Construction will begin in early 2017, after completion of the road access development which is expected to take about three months.

In late September, Berkeley announced the appointment of MDM Engineering, part of the Amec Foster Wheeler Group, to carry out the Salamanca mine's front end engineering design - the execution phase of the project during which the overall engineering and process design is translated into equipment procurement packages and awards to specialist subcontractors.

Berkeley managing director Paul Atherley described local support for the project, which the company says has the potential to be one of the biggest uranium producers in the world as well as Europe's only major uranium mine, as "fantastic". "After a decade of investment we are absolutely delighted to start development of the initial infrastructure which paves the way for the main construction early next year," he said.

Shipments from the mine, which is expected to produce 4.4 million pounds U3O8 (1692 tU) per year, are expected to begin in 2018. In September, Berkeley Energia signed a letter of intent to sell the first million pounds of output to European-based commodity trading company Interalloys Ltd.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News