Uranium prices have hit their highest in more than 16 years
Joint Venture partners Denison Mines and Orano Canada have announced plans to restart uranium mining operations at the McClean Lake mine in Canada.
Operations at McClean Lake, owned by the McClean Lake JV in which Orano is the operator and has a 77.5% stake, were suspended in 2008 in response to weak uranium prices.
The operations, set to begin in 2025, will use the JV’s patented surface access borehole resource extraction, or Sabre, mining method.
The property, about 750 km north of Saskatoon, consists of four mineral leases covering an area of 1,147 hectares and 13 mineral claims over an area of 3,111 hectares.
Uranium prices have hit their highest in more than 16 years in recent days after the world’s largest miner of the nuclear fuel, Kazakhstan’s Kazatomprom, highlighted production risks. The commodity’s bonanza is likely to continue prompting the restart of mothballed capacity.
Orano Canada president and chief executive officer Jim Corman said: “Our current ability to capitalise on the strengthening uranium and nuclear markets is the result of a long-term investment in R&D within Orano and the MLJV [McClean Lake JV] to secure continued activities at the McClean Lake operation well into the future.”
He said: “The groundwork we do over the course of 2024 is expected to put the MLJV in position to see Sabre in action and to commence production in 2025.”
The McClean Lake mill is expected to have sufficient capacity to process ore from the mine, while continuing with planned production from the Cigar Lake mine.
