Uranium in Broken Hill?

While many in the area are excited by the view of a discovery, Broken Hill based geologist Wolfgang Leyh says known deposits approximately Broken Hill are quite small.After working in the region for 40 years, Mr Leyh has questions concerning the long term economic viability of uranium mining in the far west.

"From detailed mapping that's been done here, by the state geological survey, they've done... the majority of these small showings of uranium have previously been identified, and they're all too small to be economic."So statistically the odds are not very good quality this side of the border, at least in the outcropping areas."

Despite that, Mr Leyh says there is the possible for hidden deposits which would not appear on a geological survey and can be discovered upon further exploration.A part of the reason behind the excitement is significant uranium near the border in South Australia, but Mr Leyh says there are no guarantees that deposits of a like scale will be found in NSW.

BHP Billiton approves $1.2 bn to start work on giant copper and uranium mine

BHP Billiton on Wednesday approved $1.2 billion in pre-commitment capital to start development work on its Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine, which analysts estimate could almost cost 30 times that much to develop fully.

The funds will be used to buy trucks, build worker housing and for additional items requiring lengthy lead times, it said BHP said it will not make a final decision to go ahead until mid-2012, after it weighs up the 150 environmental conditions compulsory on the project by the national and South Australia state governments this week.

Once fully developed, Olympic Dam would approximately be on par with the massive copper mines of South America, although it would take years before the mine came close to identical the output of BHP's giant Escondida lode in Chile.