Determination of Reservoir Oxidation Zone Formation in Uranium Wells Using Ensemble Machine Learning Methods

Abstract

Approximately 50% of the world’s uranium is mined in a closed way using underground well leaching. In the process of uranium mining at formation-infiltration deposits, an important role is played by the correct identification of the formation of reservoir oxidation zones (ROZs), within which the uranium content is extremely low and which affect the determination of ore reserves and subsequent mining processes. The currently used methodology for identifying ROZs requires the use of highly skilled labor and resource-intensive studies using neutron fission logging; therefore, it is not always performed. At the same time, the available electrical logging measurements data collected in the process of geophysical well surveys and exploration well data can be effectively used to identify ROZs using machine learning models. This study presents a solution to the problem of detecting ROZs in uranium deposits using ensemble machine learning methods. This method provides an index of weighted harmonic measure (f1_weighted) in the range from 0.72 to 0.93 (XGB classifier), and sufficient stability at different ratios of objects in the input dataset. The obtained results demonstrate the potential for practical use of this method for detecting ROZs in formation-infiltration uranium deposits using ensemble machine learning.