Australian uranium veteran ERA has warned it's facing blowouts in the costs and timeline of rehabilitating the environmentally sensitive site of nearly 40 years of uranium mining at its Ranger project, nestled inside a national park and on Aboriginal traditional land in the Northern Territory.
The company, majority owned by Anglo Australian major Rio Tinto, says it is still working out the full extent of the overruns.
ERA is obliged under federal and territory legislation to complete the rehabilitation in accord with an approved closure plan by January 2026, five years after active mining ceased.
A cost blowout could spark more tension between ERA and its parent company, which agreed in 2019 to underwrite a $A476M entitlement issue to fund the rehabilitation work.