Expert Energy Consulting Services
Nearly 40 years experience in the uranium and critical minerals industry
About Hot Metal Consulting LLC
Our Mission
At Hot Metal Consulting LLC, our mission is to provide advisory and consulting services to the nuclear fuel industry. We specialize in supporting our clients regarding the uranium industry in the United States and international. We bring nearly 40 years of experience in all aspects of project development and the business of uranium.
Expertise and Experience
Mr. William Paul Goranson, P.E., President and Principal Consultant for Hot Metal Consulting LLC, has nearly 38 years of experience in minerals extraction industry principally in the uranium recovery sector. For most of his career, he has been leading uranium production operations that use in situ recovery (ISR) processes, and he has managed conventional uranium mining and milling operations. Over the span of his career, he has been involved in every aspect of the uranium industry, ranging from exploration, field operations, project execution, production, reclamation, and closure. He has served in senior executive roles in several public and private corporations, and he has demonstrated performance in managing large organizations, financing large acquisitions, successful and profitable execution of corporate strategies.
Also, Mr. Goranson is a member of the Board of Directors for URZ3 Energy Corp., and he serves as a director on the Brush Country Groundwater Conservation District Board of Directors.
Mr. Goranson is a Registered Professional Engineer in the State of Texas.
He received a Master of Science in Environmental Engineering from Texas A&M University Kingsville, and he received his Bachelor of Science in Natural Gas Engineering from Texas A&I University.
Consulting Services for the Uranium Industry
Project Consulting Services
Our project consulting services are supported by nearly 40 years of experience in the uranium industry, principally in the United States with some international experience. We have demonstrated the ability to take new uranium projects from concept and open ground to a leading uranium producer. Our consulting services can provide support for various steps from initial project decisions through project closure. We can provide the services for conventional and in-situ uranium recovery projects. However, our specialty is in-situ uranium recovery projects.
Independent Technical Expert
We provide services for independent project and investment reviews and transaction due diligence support. We also provide services to support the preparation of mineral resource, initial assessments, pre-feasibility and feasibility reports. Mr. Goranson has acted as a "Qualified Person" under N.I. 43-101 and S-K 1300 for the preparation of Technical Reports and Preliminary Economic Assessments.
Uranium Market Consulting
We can provide insights and intelligence with respect to uranium markets, including developing customer contacts. We have extensive experience with uranium sales under term agreements directly with end-users (i.e. nuclear utilities and trading companies), and with dozens of spot market transactions with various financial institutions, nuclear utilities, and trading companies.
Operations Consulting
We have extensive experience with uranium recovery operations that include operational improvements, troubleshooting operation challenges, and evaluating operational performance. This expertise includes mill processes, but our real expertise is with in-situ uranium recovery operations. This includes well performance, wellfield recovery and optimization, satellite ion exchange, central processing operations, and water treatment facilities. We have had to opportunity to operate five separate facilities in different locations with distinct geochemistry and facility design. This experience has resulted in the operational improvements at all of the facilities, including restarts of historic brownfield operations.
We have successfully operated and restored groundwater to background conditions in depleted wellfields.
Health, Safety, and Radiation Safety Consulting
A performance based and risk aware operation will lead to an efficient operation that minimizes the impacts of accidents, near misses, and upset conditions. We have experience in building a strong safety culture that is focused on hazard and risk awareness to mitigate upset conditions that can hinder operational and financial performance. We have experience in training and auditing operations for all aspects of Environment, Health, and Safety (EHS) programs. Additionally, we focus on continuous improvement. We have managed radiation safety programs, and our principal consultant has been approved as a Radiation Safety Officer, in prior operational roles.
Permitting and Licensing Consulting
We have significant permitting and licensing experience. This experience includes both federal and state regulatory jurisdictions. This experience has led to a series of successful regulatory approvals, including but not limited to performance-based licensing, underground injection control permits, production area approvals. operational startup approvals, alternate concentration limits at former mill tailings facilities, and mill tailings closure. We also support development of groundwater restoration, surface reclamation, and facility decommissioning.
Regulatory and Government Affairs Consulting
Whether domestically in the U.S. or internationally, the uranium industry has been driven more by government actions and policy than markets. That is due to the nature and uses of uranium, and its roll it plays in national energy policies and geopolitics overall. As a result, changes in government policy and regulatory actions can directly affect the viability of a single uranium project or an industry as a whole. We specialize in driving regulatory change and government polices to support a specific project, or at worst, work to effect change such that the project maintains viability. We have had a long record of successfully driving change in a positive manner to assure project viability.