BHP Billiton's Yeelirrie uranium venture near Wiluna is set to receive a big boost, with the Environmental Protection Authority poised to approve the project's scoping study.

EPA approval of the scoping study is a major fillip for Yeelirrie and will allow BHP to continue pre-feasibility and environmental approval work leading up to a proposed construction start in 2012.

EPA chairman Paul Vogel told the Australian Uranium Summit in Perth yesterday that his board would consider the Yeelirrie scoping study tomorrow "and (it) is likely to be pretty much approved".

WA's fledgling uranium industry is anxiously watching the progress at would become WA's biggest uranium mine.

Related infrastructure, including transport arrangements around Kalgoorlie-Boulder, will benefit other miners.

But Andrew Shook, BHP's general manager for Yeelirrie, warned the summit that the Rudd Government's proposed Resource Super Profits Tax could yet threaten the mine's development.

"The project does remain under review," Mr Shook said.

But the new owners of BHP's former loss-making nickel mine, Ravensthorpe, appeared less concerned about the tax.

Canada's First Quantum Minerals told investors yesterday it was pushing ahead with the $150 million rebuild of the mothballed nickel mine in WA's south, even though "if enacted as proposed, the RSPT will apply a significant additional tax starting in 2012".