In-Situ Recovery Monitoring

In-situ recovery (or in-situ leaching) has been around for the uranium industry for over four decades and it is responsible for 50% of uranium production worldwide. The process of injecting a reagent and pumping out leach solution is similar to our work for designing, monitoring, and troubleshooting metal extraction on heap leach pads. HGI has a suite of geophysical, hydrological, and metallurgical applications that can help increase production, reduce risk, and bring value to an in-situ project.

In-situ recovery can also be applied to deep metal deposits, such as gold or copper. In Arizona, there are a few deep copper deposits that are being considered for in-situ recovery and HGI has been instrumental in monitoring for solution propagation, leakage along the wells, and fluid containment from breaching the cap formation above the porphyry deposit. These are typically long-term injection projects, and as such requires infrastructure to be in place for efficient monitoring (see below). HGI will design, install, and maintain the geophysical infrastructure to ensure data integrity and validity.

HGI has a suite of geophysical, hydrological, and metallurgical monitoring tools that can help increase production, reduce risk, and bring value to any in-situ recovery project.