A Cameco official says the Saskatchewan uranium mining company is pleased with the Cigar Lake mine’s 2014 production numbers in spite of a slow start.
Cameco began mining ore at Cigar Lake in March but a series of delays resulted in the first uranium concentrate at Areva Resources’ nearby McLean Lake mill not being processed until October.
The end result is the operation only produced about one-third of a million pounds of uranium concentrate last year.
However, Cameco spokesperson Rob Gereghty says they expect to ramp up production in 2015 with a target of between six to eight million pounds of uranium concentrate.
“There obviously was a learning process as we commissioned the equipment, so again we’re very pleased with the progress we’ve made and expect to produce six to eight million pounds in 2015,” he says.
Gereghty says this year’s production targets will make Cigar Lake the third largest producer of uranium concentrate in the world.
At full capacity, the Cigar Lake operation is expected to produce 18 million pounds of uranium concentrate in 2018.
The mine is jointly owned by Cameco, Areva, Idemitsu Canada Resources and Tepco Resources.