Uranium and Nuclear Power Industry – Page 36

Cameco Corp will fight after Tokyo Electric cancels $1.3 billion contract – by Sunny Freeman (Financial Post – February 1, 2017)

February 1, 2017

http://business.financialpost.com/

Cameco Corp. said Wednesday it has rejected a key Japanese customer’s attempt to cancel its contract — a move that would mean $1.3 billion in lost revenue — as the Saskatoon-based uranium giant works to protect deals signed with customers amid lower uranium prices.

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. issued a termination notice for a uranium supply contract on Jan. 24. On Monday, the Japanese power company said it would not accept a delivery scheduled for Tuesday. Cameco shares plunged 12 per cent just after the opening bell to $14.59 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Tepco alleges a “force majeure” event — or an act of God — has occurred because it has been unable operate its generating plants for the past 18 months due to government regulations enacted after the disastrous Fukushima nuclear accident of 2011.

These 10 mines have the world’s most valuable ore – by Vladimir Basov (Mining.com – January 30, 2017)

January 30, 2017

http://www.mining.com/

Have you ever wondered which mines are blasting, shovelling and hauling the most expensive ore? While the world’s highest-value minerals are well known – this list includes precious metals and gemstones – it is more practical for mining industry stakeholders to estimate the value of minerals by looking through the lens of a mining operation. Simply put, what is the worth of an excavator/ loader bucket at a particular open pit or underground mine compared to its peers in the industry?

InfoMine’s IntelligenceMine database has a powerful tool that allows users to get a quick reserves/resources valuation based on the most recent estimates of reserves/resources and commodity prices updated on a daily basis.

The following analysis covers those currently active mining operations throughout the world that are separate reporting units and which have most recent reserves evaluation figures disclosed by the owners/operators after December 31, 2014.

Interview with David Cates, President & CEO of Denison Mines (Resource World – January 26, 2017)

January 27, 2017

http://resourceworld.com/

Denison Mines Corp. [DML-TSX; DNN-NYSE MKT] is launching a major uranium exploration program on its mineral holdings in the prolific Athabasca Basin of northern Saskatchewan. Their $14.5 million (Denison’s share) budget will be focused on the 60%-owned flagship Wheeler River Project. Cameco holds 30% and JCU Canada 10%. Denison also has a 22.5% interest in the operating McClean Lake uranium mill.

At the Wheeler River property, the Phoenix deposit has indicated resources of 70.2M lbs U3O8 grading 19.1% U3O8, and is the highest grade undeveloped uranium deposit in the world. The Gryphon deposit is hosted in basement rock, approximately 3 km northwest of Phoenix, and hosts inferred resources of 43M lbs U3O8 grading 2.3% U3O8.

In an interview with Resource World, David Cates, President and CEO, discusses the outlook for the uranium sector.

RESOURCE WORLD: Talking to investors and mining executives, I’m getting two kinds of comments: 1) Uranium is asleep and will stay that way for some time, and 2) the price of uranium is just now starting to recover. What is your take on the uranium price scenario?

Cameco defends decision to tell analysts they were wrong, but sees oversupply issues fading – by Sunny Freeman (Financial Post – January 20, 2017)

January 20, 2017

http://business.financialpost.com/

Cameco Corp. is more optimistic about long-term demand for uranium than it it has been for five years, a top executive said Thursday after its stock price tumbled following the company’s unusual warning to analysts they were too bullish on the company’s 2016 performance.

The Saskatoon-based uranium miner took an extraordinary step Tuesday by issuing an announcement that analysts’ estimates for the company’s full-year results were too high. It said it expected to report a 2016 loss Feb. 9. The company’s share price lost about 10 per cent of its value on Wednesday but recovered nearly as much Thursday when it traded around $15.60 per share at midday on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Grant Isaac, Cameco’s chief financial officer, told the TD Securities Mining Conference that the company felt compelled to “correct what we felt was a misalignment in earnings expectations,” noting that restructuring costs from shuttered operations and legal costs associated with a tax dispute will weigh on its 2016 balance sheet.

NEWS RELEASE: Justice Department, EPA and The Navajo Nation Announce Settlement for Cleanup of 94 Abandoned Uranium Mines on The Navajo Nation (January 17, 2017)

January 19, 2017

January 17, 2017 – The United States and the Navajo Nation have entered into a settlement agreement with two affiliated subsidiaries of Freeport-McMoRan, Inc, for the cleanup of 94 abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Nation. Under the settlement, valued at over $600 million, Cyprus Amax Minerals Company and Western Nuclear, Inc., will perform the work and the United States will contribute approximately half of the costs.

The settlement terms are outlined in a proposed consent decree filed today in federal court in Phoenix, Arizona. With this settlement, funds are now committed to begin the cleanup process at over 200 abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Nation.

The work to be conducted is subject to oversight of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in collaboration with the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency.

Cameco to cut 120 mining and milling jobs in Saskatchewan – by Alex MacPherson (Saskatoon StarPhoenix – January 18, 2017)

January 18, 2017

http://thestarphoenix.com/

Cameco Corp. says it plans to continue its cost-cutting program by eliminating a total of about 120 jobs from its McArthur River, Cigar Lake and Key Lake operations in northern Saskatchewan.

The Saskatoon-based uranium miner said the changes represent about 10 per cent of the workforce at its three major facilities in the province, and that the layoffs will be complete by the end of May.

Cameco’s announcement comes less than two months after it unveiled plans to save some cash by temporarily halting production at its northern mines and mill for four weeks over the summer.

Cameco gets environmental approval to build Australian uranium mine – by Alex MacPherson (Saskatoon StarPhoenix – January 17, 2017)

January 18, 2017

http://thestarphoenix.com/

Cameco Corp. is one step closer to building its proposed Yeelirrie uranium mine in Western Australia, after the state’s government overturned an Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) recommendation that the project be halted.

It remains unclear, however, when the Saskatoon-based company — which operates two mines in Saskatchewan and an in situ recovery operation in Kazakhstan — will build the multi-billion-dollar open-pit mine, located 650 kilometres northeast of Perth.

“We are advancing Yeelirrie through the environmental assessment process so that we are ready to respond when the market signals a need for more uranium,” managing director of Cameco’s Australian subsidy Brian Reilly said in a statement.

Oversupply prompts Kazakh uranium production cut (World Nuclear News – January 10, 2017)

January 11, 2017

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/

Kazakhstan plans to produce 10% less uranium in 2017 than previously planned in response to ongoing oversupply in the uranium market, KazAtomProm chairman Askar Zhumagaliyev announced today.

In total, Kazakh uranium production for 2017 will be 2000 tU less than previously planned. The reduction is roughly equivalent to 3% of total global uranium production based on 2015 figures.

Kazakhstan’s uranium mining operations are either wholly owned by state-run company Kazatomprom or operated through joint ventures between KazAtomProm with international partners. The exact production levels for each mine and joint venture have been determined and approved by their respective management boards, based on the circumstances and economics of each operation, and vary from the 10% aggregate, KazAtomProm said.

World’s Worst Commodity Radioactive for Investor Portfolios – by Joe Deaux, Natalie Obiko Pearson, and Klaus Wille (Bloomberg News – January 6, 2017)

January 9, 2017

https://www.bloomberg.com/

No major commodity had a worse 2016 than uranium. In fact, the element used to make nuclear fuel has had a pretty dismal decade. Prices tumbled 41 percent last year, touching a 12-year low below $18 a pound in November, according to Ux Consulting Co., which compiles market data.

The slump was the seventh in nine years. The rise of nuclear power has slowed as utilities shifted to cheaper natural gas for new generators. And after the 2011 Fukushima disaster, safety concerns led big uranium buyers including Japan and Germany to shut down or decommission reactors.

“It’s the world’s best asset in the world’s worst market,” said Leigh Curyer, chief executive officer of NexGen Energy Ltd., a Vancouver-based uranium producer. “I don’t think there’s a mine profitable at current spot prices. This short-term spot price isn’t reflective of the cost of producing a pound globally.”

France ready to save nuclear group Areva whoever wins presidency – by Geert De Clercq (Reuters U.S. – January 4, 2017)

January 5, 2017

http://www.reuters.com/

PARIS-A government-led rescue of French nuclear group Areva and the wider atomic energy industry may cost the state as much as 10 billion euros ($10.45 billion), but political support is almost certain whoever wins the presidential election in May.

While taxpayers will ultimately pick up the huge bill, the main election contenders – from the Socialists and conservatives to the far-right National Front – broadly back the bailout, which involves splitting up Areva. (AREVA.PA)

On top of its dire financial state, Areva is beset by technical, regulatory and legal problems. But given its importance to a nuclear industry that generates three quarters of France’s electricity and employs 220,000 people, the next government probably has little choice but to stand by the scheme hatched under outgoing Socialist President Francois Hollande.

[Qubec Mining] “I would be surprised [if] someone [could] … raise capital right now to develop a uranium project until you know how this … will be settled” – by Staff (Mining Journal – December 20, 2016)

December 20, 2016

http://www.mining-journal.com/

Junior Strateco Resources’ (US:SRSIF) looming C$200 million (US$150 million) court case against the Quebec government is expected to set the precedent for other uranium hopefuls.

Strateco is suing the provincial government for investment losses and punitive damages after its Matoush uranium project was blocked following years of preliminary work.

Strateco spent an average $20 million a year on Matoush between 2006-2012, The Globe and Mail reported, on the basis that uranium exploration and mining were allowed in Quebec.

Arrested Development: How a high school student helped block Quebec’s uranium industry – by Damon van der Linde (Financial Post – December 15, 2016)

December 15, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

MISTISSINI, Que. — Hunting grouse on a snowy road that cuts through the forest north of his home in the Cree community of Mistissini, Justice Debassige reflects on why, as a 17-year-old high school student in 2012, he started a petition against a uranium exploration project 215 kilometres away.

“I read research on how it damages the land and the water, so that was what drew me in,” he said, while searching for birds down the road towards the now-shuttered site owned by Boucherville, Que.-based Strateco Resources Inc. “It’s something to really think about when we’re out here.”

Debassige said he couldn’t have imagined at the time that his petition would be the catalyst for a complete moratorium against exploration of the radioactive mineral across Quebec, result in a $200-million lawsuit by Strateco Resources against the government and pit the federal nuclear safety agency against a provincial environmental commission.

Soviet Uranium Mines Still Have Deadly Impact in Kyrgyzstan – by Ryskeldi Satke (The Diplomat – December 13, 2016)

December 14, 2016

http://thediplomat.com/

MAILUU-SUU, Kyrgyzstan — The remote town of Mailuu Suu in South Kyrgyzstan is known for a Soviet legacy that still haunts the local population of more than 22,000.

Residents of Mailuu Suu commonly say that the very first Soviet atomic bomb was made out of locally extracted uranium in the late 1940s. The township is surrounded by uranium tailings and radioactive dumps that have been of greatest concern to the country’s neighbor, Uzbekistan, for decades.

The gravest dilemma for the Kyrgyz government is related to the frequent landslides in the areas along the river of Mailuu Suu where the Soviet government kept radioactive waste from the uranium mining. The glaciers of the southern Tian Shan feed this river, which flows directly to the neighboring republic of Uzbekistan in the Ferghana Valley.

Trump Could Fuel A Nuclear Energy Boom In 2017 – by James Stafford (Oil Price.com – December 06, 2016)

December 7, 2016

http://oilprice.com/

With Trump at the helm, sentiment gives way to practicality in the energy industry. For the vast untapped potential of the nuclear energy industry and the uranium that feeds it, this could contribute to a market-disrupting revival that no longer bows to fear and the politics of economy.

While there have been some oversupply issues keeping uranium prices down, the bigger problem has been negative sentiment rather than real fundamentals, but the Trump presidency will see through that.

Trump’s take on nuclear energy is quite simple. As he noted after the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan: “If a plane goes down, people keep flying. If you get into an auto crash, people keep driving.” Now more than ever, demand for uranium appears to be assured. But more than that, it’s about to truly explode as a number of situations combine to form the new era of nuclear power.

Tribes Call On Obama to Bar Uranium Mining in Grand Canyon Forever – by Tanya H. Lee (Indian Country Today Media Network – November 22, 2016)

November 29, 2016

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/

The Havasupai, Hualapai, Navajo, and Hopi are among the tribes working with Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., environmental groups and other lawmakers to designate 1.7 million acres bordering Grand Canyon National Park as the Grand Canyon Heritage National Monument.

The designation would make permanent the 20-year federal moratorium on new uranium mining in and around the canyon put in place in 2012. At stake are a fragile watershed, extensive wildlife habitat and sacred and archaeological sites important to the tribes’ religious and cultural survival.

With elections less than a month away and a lawsuit brought by mining companies seeking to end the federal moratorium set for a hearing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in December, time is short.