A Global Times reporter visited uranium exploration and mining sites in the Yili Basin in Xinjiang. The report describes drilling rigs boring about 1,000 meters down to find ore bodies and an ‘in-situ leaching’ method that extracts uranium by injecting solution rather than digging mines.
Global Times reporter Fan Lingzhi visited the Yili base of CNNC Xinjiang Mining and the 216 Brigade in October and wrote the report. It says uranium was formed by neutron star mergers or supernovae and is widely dispersed in the crust. Crustal rock averages about 2.5 grams per tonne, more than gold, silver, mercury or tungsten, but it rarely concentrates into economically minable deposits.
광고 문의 · 300×250Uranium bodies in the Yili Basin are ribbon-shaped, so a small difference in depth can make a borehole miss the ore. A core drilling rig about six stories tall stands near farmland in the Yili valley, using 4.6-meter rods joined three at a time. One hole with a designed depth of 1,130 meters had reached about 1,000 meters at the time of the visit.
Slow drilling and the people on site
Meng Xiangsen, deputy head of Drilling Team 1, said a 500-meter hole takes about ten days and a 1,000-meter hole nearly a month. After each rod length of progress all rods must be pulled out to take core samples and inspect tools, so work slows with depth. After drilling, downhole logging and core analysis decide whether to proceed to in-situ leaching or abandon the site.
Field crews live in prefab cabins with six bunks, and workers cite homesickness as the main hardship. Wang Ruru, a drilling expert who joined at 24 from Gansu in 1996, has handled over 400 downhole accidents in 29 years, filed 21 patents, and once worked 72 hours straight in Turpan heat above 40 degrees Celsius.
In-situ leaching, environment and community
According to Tang Yiwei, deputy director of Plant 735, the plant once ran China’s largest single-unit in-situ leaching demonstration project. Exploration holes are reused as process wells: injection wells send leaching fluid into the ore zone and extraction wells bring uranium-bearing solution up for purification. The underground circuit is closed, so no surface pits or shafts are needed.
The technology began in 1964 with extraction from uranium-bearing lignite, saw acid leaching trials in 1987, and now uses third-generation neutral leaching with carbon dioxide and oxygen, said to suit Yili’s carbonate-rich deposits. Wells are laid out in a five-spot pattern following groundwater flow, and a control room automatically adjusts reagent ratios at each injection well.
On safety and the environment, Tang likened the annual radiation dose of residents near nuclear plants to one cigarette and a round-trip flight to Europe to one chest X-ray. Ikbal Shamsiding, a 23-year-old driller earning about 8,000 yuan a month to support six family members, said grassland recovers and is reseeded after drilling. The company says it follows a ‘green mine’ model and prioritizes hiring local residents and relatives. These are company statements and employee accounts that this paper did not independently verify.
