Cameco mining company released its technical report for its McArthur River uranium mine at the end of last month.
After constantly low uranium prices, the mine was indefinitely closed at the beginning of 2018.
“We had a pretty strong finish to 2018 that helped us strengthen our foundation at Cameco,” says Carey Hyndman, the communications manager at Cameco. “A few of these results are net earnings of $166 million and adjusted net earnings of $211 (million).”
The last technical report was completed in 2012 and operating costs of the mine were just shy of $19.23 per pound of the element.
In this report, they are in at $14.97 per pound.
“Some of the things that they did update in this report is that they’re looking at a mine life of 23 years,” says Hyndman.
That means that when, and if, the mine reopens, the shelf life on the mine will be 23 years, if they produce 18 million pounds of uranium each year.
“A lot of the costs that they look at are the total estimated capital cost,” explains Hyndman. “These costs have come down from what we said in 2012. That is because of the good work that’s been done to get our systems in place, to sort of optimize the mine design.”
While there is no word of when the mine restart production, the CEO and President of Cameco Tim Gitzel, claims that it is more of a “when” it will reopen, not an “if.”
Currently, there is a team of about 100 workers employed by Cameco who are busy keeping the McArthur River site up to code, so when the green light is given, operations can resume quickly.
(PHOTO: McArthur River uranium mine. Photo courtesy of Cameco.)