The state’s Environmental Protection Authority has accepted the site’s rehabilitation program and approved a 10-year mining lease, including radiation management and radioactive waste management plans.

“Four Mile is yet another example of the government working with industry to deliver results for South Australia,” Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy Tom Koutsantonis said today.

“PACE funding played a key role in the discovery of the resource at Four Mile; one of the most significant uranium deposits discovered anywhere in the world in the past 25 years.”

PACE is a South Australian government initiative to attract further mineral and petroleum exploration investment.

Koutsantonis said the joint venturers’ plan to process the resource mined at Four Mile through the existing Beverley facilities required the environmental program for those operations to be modified.

“For more than a decade, Heathgate has run a first-class operation at Beverley and I am

confident those practices will continue at Four Mile,” he said.

“The new mine will create construction jobs in both the short and long term and contribute to

the ongoing employment of Heathgate Resources’ existing 200 person workforce that supports the Beverley and Beverley North operations and underpin Four Mile’s future expansion.

Alliance and Quasar are also required to lodge a rehabilitation liability bond and key design, construction and commissioning reports to the state Department for Manufacturing, Innovation, Trade, Resources and Energy and EPA as the mine is developed.

Approval of the relevant monitoring programs and plans will also be required.

Four Mile is located 550km north of Adelaide and contains two mineralised zones within Tertiary-age sediments.

The resource at the site’s Four Mile West area is 3.9 million tonnes at 0.37% uranium oxide containing 15,000t of uranium oxide.

Shares in Alliance were up 3.2% today at A16c.