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Wyoming may have missed the Uranium boom

The uranium market is slowing after a brief boom in the years after 2005. Increasing costs for the industry and uncertainty are making operators reconsider projects.

Cameco Resources’ President Paul Goranson told the legislature’s Joint Minerals, Business and Economic Development Interim Committee that Cameco will now aim to increase production to about 36 million pounds of yellowcake by 2018…rather than the previously announced 40 million pounds.

“Mining companies including Cameco are responding to that market uncertainty and downgrading our plans for long term demand. The reality is that we went from 100+ new nuclear reactors over the next ten years to about less than 80. So some of the companies, including Cameco, are doing things like deferring some of our growth projects, I think all of us are looking at cutting costs dramatically.” 

Goranson says that while Wyoming has the nation’s largest uranium deposits, it missed the recent boom in large part because the regulatory agencies did not process permits in time to take advantage of it.  

Irina Zhorov is a reporter for Wyoming Public Radio. She earned her BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MFA from the University of Wyoming. In between, she worked as a photographer and writer for Philadelphia-area and national publications. Her professional interests revolve around environmental and energy reporting and she's reported on mining issues from Wyoming, Mexico, and Bolivia. She's been supported by the Dick and Lynn Cheney Grant for International Study, the Eleanor K. Kambouris Grant, and the Social Justice Research Center Research Grant for her work on Bolivian mining and Uzbek alpinism. Her work has appeared on Voice of America, National Native News, and in Indian Country Today, among other publications.
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