/

/

/

In-situ recovery, watched below ground.

In-situ recovery pumps a solution through an ore body and recovers it from production wells, leaving the rock in place. Uranium, copper and some salts are mined this way. The central obligation is to keep the solution in the ore zone, so the observation network is a ring of monitoring wells, instruments on every wellhead and a chemistry record that regulators can audit.

Industry

Mining

Measurements

6

Sources cited

3

1. Mining · In-situ recovery

   Mining without moving the rock

   In-situ recovery leaves the ore body in place and moves a solution through it instead. That makes the groundwater around the wellfield the thing to protect. The licence draws a boundary of monitoring wells, and the whole operation depends on proving, day after day, that the solution stays inside it.

2. What is measured

   Wells, wellheads and lines

   Monitoring wells carry level and conductivity sensors between laboratory samples; injection and production wellheads carry flow and pressure; header houses and pond underdrains carry leak detection. Laboratory chemistry, commonly chloride, conductivity and alkalinity as excursion indicators, remains the measurement of record and joins the same timeline.

   Instruments

   Level · Conductivity · Flow · Pressure · Leak detection · Laboratory samples

3. The base node

   Every reading belongs to one well

   Each endpoint and gateway is enrolled with the well it serves, so every reading carries the well’s identity as well as its own signature and time. The plant’s edge node holds baselines and control limits per well and keeps the wellfield’s injection and production balance in view.

4. Radio and links

   LoRaWAN over the pattern, fibre to the plant

   Battery endpoints on monitoring wells report over LoRaWAN without trenching cable to each well. Header houses join the plant over fibre laid with the pipes or over private LTE, and satellite backhaul serves remote wellfields. The network grows pattern by pattern with the wellfield.

   Radio

   LoRaWAN · Private LTE · Fibre · Satellite

5. How it works

   From a monitoring well to an excursion case

   A conductivity reading leaves the well’s endpoint over LoRaWAN, reaches the gateway, is signed and passed to the edge node, where it is compared with the well’s baseline and limits. A rising trend opens a case, schedules the confirmation sample and notifies the hydrogeologist with the evidence attached.

6. From order to operation · Order

   Scope the wellfield and the licence

   The scope starts from the licence and permits: the monitoring ring, the aquifers above and below, the excursion indicators and limits, and the restoration commitments. Nexus Observatory Inc. returns a station plan for every well class, the network design, the chemistry workflow and a price per wellfield and per phase.

   Plan a deployment

7. From order to operation · Survey

   Survey wells, header houses and lines

   The crew walks the wellfield with the hydrogeologist and the plant engineer. It checks wellhead access and protection, header house panels and power, radio coverage across the pattern, and the routes of trunk lines and pond underdrains, and records every well against the project’s coordinates and identifiers.

8. From order to operation · Permits

   Work inside the licence

   Monitoring design, limits and reporting are set by the licence and the underground injection control permit. Radio, power and any new structure follow the site’s own approvals, and radiation protection rules apply to every visit at a uranium operation. Every change to the monitoring design is agreed before it is made.

9. From order to operation · Build

   Build per well class

   Monitoring-well stations, wellhead flow and pressure instruments, header house gateways and the plant’s edge node are built and tested per well class. Each one is enrolled with its identity and the well it belongs to, so a reading can never be filed against the wrong well.

   Open the Station Builder

10. From order to operation · Install

    Install pattern by pattern

    Installation follows the development of the wellfield. Gateways go in first, then monitoring-ring stations before injection starts, so the baseline is continuous, then wellhead instruments as each pattern is completed. Every station is checked against the well’s records and photographed.

11. From order to operation · Commission

    Establish baselines before injection

    Each station proves its identity, then its conductivity and level readings are compared with laboratory samples and manual measurements. Baselines and control limits are entered from the licence data, and a test excursion runs from a well to the hydrogeologist’s console and back.

12. From order to operation · Operate

    Catch excursions early

    The console shows each monitoring well against its baseline, the hydraulic gradient across the wellfield and the balance of injection and production. A rising trend opens a case with its data, the confirmation sampling the licence requires and the corrective actions, all in one record.

13. From order to operation · Maintain

    Through restoration and stability

    Stations are serviced and recalibrated on schedule, moved as patterns are added and kept running through restoration and the stability period after it. The record that started with the baseline ends with the evidence that groundwater met its restoration standard.

    Book field services

14. Data products

    From operations to closure

    Hydrogeologists see each well against its limits; operators see the balance of injection and production; environmental teams manage excursion cases; regulators receive reports in the licence’s format; closure planners inherit restoration and stability records. One record runs from the first baseline to the last stability sample.

    See the data products

15. Evidence

    A record from baseline to restoration

    Baselines, calibrations, samples with their chain of custody, every case and every action are signed and kept. Monitoring follows the licence and the review practice for in-situ recovery and the underground injection control rules, so a reviewer can trace any conclusion to the wells and samples behind it.

    Drawn against

    NUREG-1569 · 40 CFR Part 146 · EPA Class III wells

16. What you get

    Environmental and permit monitoring

    Emissions, water quality, noise and dust monitoring for permit conditions, with traceable calibration and evidence bundles. Delivered as managed service and data licence, for industrial operators, municipalities, regulators. Scale: Site to portfolio. Service levels are written as numbers you can measure on your own dashboard.

    Talk to sales

17. Next step

    Plan in-situ recovery with us

    Tell us the site, the measurements and the rules it answers to. We reply with a survey proposal, a design and a scope for in-situ recovery. An engineer replies with a survey proposal and a scope, and the plan grows from one site to the network you need, at your pace.

    Plan a deploymentOpen the Station BuilderOpen the Studio

01The place and its hazards

Where it runs, and what can go wrong.

Operating contextInjection and production wells are laid out in patterns across the ore zone. A leaching solution is injected, dissolves the metal and is pumped back to a processing plant. Monitoring wells surround the wellfield and sit in the aquifers above and below the ore, and after mining the groundwater must be restored to the standard the licence sets and shown to stay there.

Hazards

• Horizontal or vertical excursion of mining solution beyond the ore zone
• Loss of well casing or cement integrity
• Leaks and spills from header houses, pipelines and ponds
• Radiological exposure at uranium operations
• Incomplete groundwater restoration after mining

02What must be measured

What, where, how often, and under which rules.

Each measurement names where it is taken, how often, and the public standard or regulation behind it. Numbers in the sources column open the cited source below.

03The observation stack

From one base unit to a network.

The same blocks at every scale: instruments and a base node, a site with its radio, a fleet run as one, and a network federated on the open protocol.

1. 01

   Base unit

   A wellhead station: level and conductivity in a monitoring well, or flow and pressure on an injection line, read by a battery endpoint or an industrial gateway in the header house.

   Build a station →
2. 02

   Site

   A wellfield: its monitoring ring, header houses with their gateways, a LoRaWAN network over the pattern and an edge node at the plant.

   Plan a site →
3. 03

   Fleet

   Every wellfield of the operation, from development to restoration, run as one fleet with one excursion policy and one chemistry record.

   Managed offers →
4. 04

   Network

   Several projects of an operator, and the regulator’s reviewers, work from one federated record of wells, samples and decisions.

   The open protocol →

• 01Water quality sonde
• 02Water level gauge
• 03Flow meter
• 04LPWAN endpoint
• 05LoRaWAN gateway
• 06OT gateway (OPC UA, Modbus)
• 07Edge node (Wedge)
• 08Fibre terminal
• 09Solar array
• 10Pole

Radio and links

LoRaWAN

Monitoring wells spread across and beyond the wellfield report level and conductivity from battery endpoints, without trenching cable to each one.

Radio and links

Private LTE

Header houses, the plant and vehicles share one licensed network for control data and video across the wellfield.

Radio and links

Fibre

Header houses on permanent trunk lines carry control data on fibre laid with the pipes.

Radio and links

Satellite

Remote satellite wellfields use satellite backhaul until terrestrial links arrive.

Edge computeAn edge node at the plant compares every monitoring well with its baseline and upper control limits, opens an excursion case when a trend crosses them and keeps the wellfield’s balance of injection and production in view.

PowerMonitoring-well endpoints run on batteries for long periods between visits; header houses take plant power, and remote wells use small solar panels.

04How it works

From the instrument to the product.

One observation’s path, tier by tier, with the interface on every link and a bill of materials below; then how the one node grows to a site, a fleet and federated networks.

05From order to operation

Every step, from the first call to a running site.

The same crew and the same record carry the work from scope to maintenance.

1. 01 Order

   Scope the wellfield and the licence

   The scope starts from the licence and permits: the monitoring ring, the aquifers above and below, the excursion indicators and limits, and the restoration commitments. Nexus Observatory Inc. returns a station plan for every well class, the network design, the chemistry workflow and a price per wellfield and per phase. 13

2. 02 Survey

   Survey wells, header houses and lines

   The crew walks the wellfield with the hydrogeologist and the plant engineer. It checks wellhead access and protection, header house panels and power, radio coverage across the pattern, and the routes of trunk lines and pond underdrains, and records every well against the project’s coordinates and identifiers.

3. 03 Permits

   Work inside the licence

   Monitoring design, limits and reporting are set by the licence and the underground injection control permit. Radio, power and any new structure follow the site’s own approvals, and radiation protection rules apply to every visit at a uranium operation. Every change to the monitoring design is agreed before it is made. 21

4. 04 Build

   Build per well class

   Monitoring-well stations, wellhead flow and pressure instruments, header house gateways and the plant’s edge node are built and tested per well class. Each one is enrolled with its identity and the well it belongs to, so a reading can never be filed against the wrong well.

5. 05 Install

   Install pattern by pattern

   Installation follows the development of the wellfield. Gateways go in first, then monitoring-ring stations before injection starts, so the baseline is continuous, then wellhead instruments as each pattern is completed. Every station is checked against the well’s records and photographed.

6. 06 Commission

   Establish baselines before injection

   Each station proves its identity, then its conductivity and level readings are compared with laboratory samples and manual measurements. Baselines and control limits are entered from the licence data, and a test excursion runs from a well to the hydrogeologist’s console and back.

7. 07 Operate

   Catch excursions early

   The console shows each monitoring well against its baseline, the hydraulic gradient across the wellfield and the balance of injection and production. A rising trend opens a case with its data, the confirmation sampling the licence requires and the corrective actions, all in one record.

8. 08 Maintain

   Through restoration and stability

   Stations are serviced and recalibrated on schedule, moved as patterns are added and kept running through restoration and the stability period after it. The record that started with the baseline ends with the evidence that groundwater met its restoration standard.

06Data products and integration

What it delivers, to whom, and into which systems.

Data products

• Monitoring-well series against baseline and limitsHydrogeologists, environmental managers, regulators
• Excursion cases with sampling and actionsEnvironmental teams and regulators
• Wellfield balance of injection and productionWellfield operators and plant engineers
• Leak detection alertsOperators and environmental teams
• Restoration and stability recordsRegulators and closure planners

Integration

• Plant control system and historianWellhead and header data move over OPC UA into the plant historian with their quality flags.
• Laboratory information systemSample results are matched to wells and joined to the continuous series with their chain of custody.
• Regulatory reportingExcursion and monitoring reports are produced in the format the licence specifies.

Exchanged through OPC UA (IEC 62541), OGC SensorThings API, LoRaWAN.

07Questions buyers ask

Before you scope it.

Do continuous sensors replace sampling?

No. Sampling and laboratory analysis remain the measurements of record. Continuous level and conductivity show trends between samples and help decide when confirmation sampling is needed.

Can the record be used in restoration?

Yes. Baselines, monitoring and restoration data stay in one record, so the comparison with the restoration standard is traceable to every sample.

What about uranium radiation protection?

Every visit follows the site’s radiation protection programme. The monitoring network does not change that programme; it records where and when crews worked.

Can we start with the monitoring ring?

Yes. Many projects start with the ring and baseline wells before injection, then add wellhead instruments pattern by pattern.

08Resources

The sources behind this page.

Public standards, regulations and guidance, cited where they apply. Each applies only where its jurisdiction or scope does.

1. 1NUREG-1569: Standard Review Plan for In Situ Leach Uranium Extraction License ApplicationsUS Nuclear Regulatory Commission · 2003
2. 240 CFR Part 146: Underground injection control program, criteria and standardsUS Environmental Protection Agency (eCFR)
3. 3Class III wells: injection wells for solution miningUS Environmental Protection Agency

09Related

Use cases and solutions.

10Mining: specialized fields

Other fields of this industry.

Bring us the site.

Plan a deployment, configure a station, model it in the Studio or talk to sales. The form names who receives your details.