Cameco and Areva’s official opening of their Cigar Lake and McClean Lake uranium production sites was more than a decade in the making.
The celebrations comes after more than a year of ore production, and approximately a decade of construction fraught with delays.
Construction at the northern Cigar Lake mine site started in 2005, but major issues stacked up at the northern mine site after a massive flood in 2006. A second inflow in 2008 added to delays.
Mining of uranium ore began in March of 2014, with the first packaged uranium concentrate from Cigar Lake available in October of 2014.
Even though boring has been underway for more than a year and a half, significant commercial ore production didn’t begin until this May.
Once extracted, the uranium from Cigar Lake is taken to the McClean Lake mill – which is owned by AREVA Canada Resources Inc. – for production.
So far this year McClean Lake mill has processed and packaged 6.1 million pounds of uranium concentrate from ore mined at Cigar Lake.
It’s estimated that total production will be up to 8 million pounds this year.
The Cameco mine has one of the richest uranium deposits in the world, and expects production to ramp up to 18 million pounds by 2018.
The McLean Lake mill is currently undergoing expansion, which is slated to be done by 2016.
Numerous industry and political dignitaries are on hand for the grand opening.
MBC Radio has a reporter touring the mine, and will have an update with further details later today.