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.