Lots of deposit rich areas but no mines?

[GREENtreefrog]

Hi there, I hope someone can help clarify something for me..

I noticed on this map, , that there are lots of deposit rich areas in Australia but only 3 operational mines. Why is this? Too expensive to fund? Not enough need?

Thanks in advance!

[Sparty]

The reason for their being only three mines is that it was a federal Govt. policy introduced in 1984.

"The three mines policy restricted uranium mining In 1984 the federal Laborgovernment introduced their three mines policy. It confined Australia's uranium production to the three sites already being mined: Ranger, Nabarlek and Olympic Dam. At the time, the mining industry felt that this unnecessarily restricted uranium mining."

The three mines policy was abandoned when the Coalition government was elected in March 1996. The Coalition's policy is to develop the export potential of Australia's uranium industry by allowing mining and export of uranium under strict international agreements designed to prevent nuclear proliferation.

The Federal Labor party is in favour of opening up Australia's vast uranium resources.

The next mine will probably be in South Australia.

Interestingly the majority of Australia's second tier uranium players have gone to Namibia a mining friendly country.