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Uranium and Nuclear Power Industry

IRS targets uranium producer Cameco as CRA tax dispute intensifies – by Peter Koven (National Post -February 9, 2015)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service is demanding back taxes from Cameco Corp., adding to the miner’s ever-growing tax woes ahead of a crucial trial expected next year.

The IRS believes the revenue reported by Cameco’s Swiss subsidiary, Cameco Europe Ltd., is inadequate and that a portion should be taxed back in the U.S. at a much higher level. The claim is similar to the one made by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), which is trying to shift Cameco Europe’s revenue to Canada and apply a debilitating collection of back taxes and penalties.

Cameco insists it has done nothing wrong. But the Saskatoon-based miner said that if it loses the CRA dispute, the amount of back taxes and transfer-pricing penalties could amount to as much as $1.5-billion, with other penalties added on top. That would be a devastating blow to the company.

The IRS demand is much smaller, as it seeks to collect US$32-million from Cameco that it feels it was owed in 2009. It is also auditing tax returns from 2010 to 2012, and Cameco expects the U.S. agency to make similar claims for those years.

While the IRS demands are insignificant compared to those of the CRA, some experts think the IRS move against Cameco could bolster the CRA’s case. At the very least, it gives the company another sizable headache to deal with.

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Uranium-rich Australian state to examine possible nuclear industry – by Morag MacKinnon (Reuters U.K. – February 8, 2015)

http://uk.reuters.com/

PERTH – Feb 8 (Reuters) – – South Australia, home to one of the largest uranium deposits in the world, will conduct an inquiry into the potential benefits and risks of establishing a nuclear industry there, the state government said on Sunday.

South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill said a commission would be set up to investigate the potential of the nuclear industry to deliver economic growth and combat climate change, and to examine the risks involved.

Australia’s uranium reserves are the world’s largest, according to the World Nuclear Association, accounting for almost a third of known global deposits, but it has no nuclear power plants of its own.

“This is an opportunity to explore practical, financial and ethical issues raised by deeper involvement in nuclear industries,” Weatherill wrote on his twitter account. BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam mine in South Australia is one of the largest uranium deposits in the world.

In 2012, the global miner shelved a planned $20 billion expansion of the mine due to falling copper and uranium prices, dealing a big blow to South Australia’s economy.

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BREAKINGVIEWS-Obama’s nuclear gift to Modi is shrewd investment – by Andy Mukherjee (Reuters India – January 26, 2015)

http://in.reuters.com/

Jan 26 (Reuters Breakingviews) – Barack Obama’s nuclear gift to India looks like a shrewd investment. By agreeing to a workaround that protects power station builders from civil liabilities in the event of a meltdown, the U.S. president has effectively unblocked New Delhi’s reactor programme. The bigger bet is on ending India’s energy crisis.

The agreement, struck on the first day of Obama’s visit to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, could bring new orders for equipment makers like GE-Hitachi , Toshiba’s Westinghouse and France’s Areva. About 4 gigawatts (GW) of new nuclear power capacity is under construction in India; another 40GW is planned over the next 10 years. Even if only half of it gets built, that’s worth $35 billion in contracts.

But a more potent opportunity for U.S. businesses may be the jolt to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Make in India” campaign. Lack of power is the single biggest obstacle to making India a manufacturing force. Electricity supply in northern parts of the country, which are poor and bursting with surplus labour, fell 6 percent short of demand in December.

Mining more coal will remain Modi’s first priority. But nuclear power will play an important supporting role. Currently it accounts for just 3 percent of India’s total electricity consumption; a legacy of the country’s pariah status in the global market for fissionable materials. That ended in 2008 with a civilian nuclear agreement with the United States. But the reactors that were conceived got stuck after India passed a law in 2010 making global equipment makers liable for accidents.

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‘This one is special’: Fission Uranium’s monster resource estimate rekindles takeover chatter – by Peter Koven (National Post – January 13, 2015)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

The monster resource estimate announced by Fission Uranium Corp. has boosted takeover speculation around the company, and chief executive Dev Randhawa isn’t doing anything to douse that talk.

He said in an interview Monday that investment bankers have already set up a data room for potential bidders. But he is in no rush to do a deal, as the company continues to expand its Patterson Lake South (PLS) uranium discovery in Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin.

“We don’t control if someone comes and makes a run at us. We are ready for it if someone does,” Mr. Randhawa said. It has been clear for several months that Fission’s PLS discovery is one of the best uranium finds in decades. But investors and analysts were still highly impressed when they saw the initial resource estimate.

Kelowna, B.C.-based Fission said late Friday the deposit contains an estimated 105.5 million pounds of uranium resources, of which almost 80 million are in the “indicated” category (the rest are in the more speculative “inferred” category). While the discovery is much smaller than Saskatchewan’s two largest uranium mines (McArthur River and Cigar Lake), it compares favourably to everything else in the province. And more than half of the resource comprises a “high-grade zone” that could potentially be mined at very low costs.

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Energy Fuels strikes $179M deal to buy Uranerz amid rough uranium market – by Peter Koven (National Post – January 6, 2015)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

TORONTO – Two Toronto-listed uranium miners are merging as they try to build a stronger company that can thrive amid low uranium prices.

Energy Fuels Inc. announced Monday that it is buying Uranerz Energy Corp. for roughly $179-million in stock. The move brings together two U.S.-focused companies that are struggling to make money and attract investor interest in the stagnant uranium market.

The offer is a 37% premium to Uranerz’s closing price last Friday, and some investors thought that was too rich. Energy Fuels shares plunged almost 15% on Monday after the deal was announced.

“The premium didn’t make a lot of sense to us,” said Aaron Salz, a research associate at Dundee Capital Markets. Dundee concluded that the deal is dilutive to Energy Fuels’ net asset value by 35%, and thinks a competing bid is unlikely.

But from a strategic standpoint, experts said the deal is logical. It gives Energy Fuels more scale, lower operating costs and a uranium mine in Wyoming called Nichols Ranch where production can be expanded.

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Cree walkers against uranium mining arrive in Montreal after 850 km walk (CBC News Montreal – December 15, 2014)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal

Group delivers message to environmental protection agency on final day of hearings into uranium mining

A group of Cree protesters have reached their final destination after completing an 850-km march to protest against uranium exploration and mining in Quebec.

The group arrived in downtown Montreal today to deliver a message to the province’s environmental protection agency, known as the BAPE, which is holding the last of a series of public hearings on uranium exploration. They will make a presentation at the hearings this evening.

About 20 people made the full journey, walking an average of about 30 km a day over a three-weeks period, often in frigid temperatures.

The group left Mistissini, Que., a town northeast of Chibougamau, in the James Bay region, in late November. Youth Grand Chief Joshua Iserhoff said those they met along the way overwhelmingly supported a ban on uranium mining.

Uranium extraction has been on the table in Mistissini since 2006. A Boucherville-based company, Strateco Resources, has invested $120 million into developing a uranium mine in Mistissini in the last ten years.

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Strateco suing Quebec for $190-million over blocked uranium project – by Nicolas Van Praet (The Globe and Mail – December 12, 2014)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

MONTREAL — Quebec mining junior Strateco Resources Inc. is suing the provincial government for $190-million in investment losses following its decision to block the company’s uranium project after years of preliminary work.

“This whole thing has left us extremely frustrated,” Strateco chief executive Guy Hébert said Thursday, noting that he put two mines into production in Quebec within a nine-year period while this project has taken a decade and still isn’t producing.

Strateco’s Matoush uranium project in Northern Quebec was once hailed as a key part of former premier Jean Charest’s Plan Nord, a multibillion-dollar effort to develop Quebec’s north, pinned on natural resource extraction. Today, it sits undeveloped, highlighting the confusion that’s come from Quebec City in recent years on mining activity.

Boucherville, Que.-based Strateco, once a $4 stock that now trades for pennies, said it invested an average of $20-million a year on the Matoush project from 2006 to 2012 on the basis that uranium exploration and mining are allowed in Quebec. The government granted the company some 30 permits to start work at the site, including permission to build an airstrip.

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Nunavik says no to uranium mining – by Sarah Rogers (Nunatsiaq Online – November 26, 2014)

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

Final round of Quebec public hearings to visit the region next week

KUUJJUAQ — Nunavik’s leadership has taken a position on the future of uranium mining in the region — and it’s a resounding “no.”

And Makivik Corp. and the Kativik Regional Government plan to say so in a joint brief that will be submitted to public hearings in Nunavik next week.

The independent Quebec body called the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement, or BAPE, is returning to the region for a third and final round as part of its province-wide tour to gauge the public’s opinion on uranium mining.

“We’re going to say that there should be no uranium mining in Nunavik, period,” KRG chair Maggie Emudluk told a meeting of regional councillors in Kuujjuaq Nov. 26.

The BAPE has been to Nunavik twice already in 2014, but while its previous visits took questions and provided information to the public, its upcoming stops in Kuujjuaq Dec. 2 and Kangisualujjuaq Dec. 3 will be to hear the region’s position on potential uranium development.

It wasn’t clear until now that Nunavik’s leaders have takes a public stand on the issue.

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Japan’s nuclear restart to boost Australian uranium industry – by Vicky Validakis (Australian Mining – November 18, 2014)

http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/home

The Minerals Council of Australia says Australia’s uranium industry is set for a boost as Japan moves to restart nuclear reactors for the first time since the Fukushima meltdown.

Two reactors at Japan’s Sendai nuclear plant in the south west of the country are due to restart next year after receiving approval from local governor Yuichiro Ito.

This is the first time a reactor will restart since an earthquake triggered a tsunami in 2011, causing a meltdown at the Fukushima facility.

All of Japan’s 48 nuclear plants were shut down in response, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been pushing for their reopening as the cost of importing oil and gas hurts the Japanese economy, BBC reported.

Before the meltdown nuclear energy produced around 30 per cent of Japan’s power. “I have decided that it is unavoidable to restart the No. 1 and No. 2 Sendai nuclear reactors,” Ito said. “I have said that assuring safety is a prerequisite and that the government must ensure safety and publicly explain it thoroughly to residents.”

Executive director for uranium at the Minerals Council of Australia Daniel Zavattiero said the move was good news for the local uranium industry and its 4000 workers.

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In China, Candu Energy sees promising future – by Nathan Vanderklippe (Globe and Mail – November 10, 2014)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

BEIJING — Jean Chrétien was in a good mood when he came to Shanghai in late 1996 to sell two Candu reactors. He kidded around with Li Peng, the then-Chinese premier, going so far as to try to place a red pompon on the head of the famously dour leader.

Mr. Chrétien promised a future filled with more multibillion-dollar sales of Canadian nuclear technology to China. “I hope we will have many more Candus built in this great country of yours,” he said then.

For the nearly two decades that followed, that optimism bore no fruit.

Now, however, Candu Energy – divorced from the federal government and in the hands of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. – says it is working toward a deal that could see it partner with a Chinese nuclear giant to build new reactors, both in China and abroad.

By June, 2015, Candu hopes to finalize a joint-venture deal with China National Nuclear Corp., the massive state-owned atomic power and weapons company, “to develop global opportunities” for its advanced fuel reactor. The two sides signed an initial broad-strokes memorandum of understanding during the visit of Prime Minister Stephen Harper to Beijing this weekend.

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Uncertainty clouds the investment outlook of Quebec’s mining industry – by Bertrand Marotte (Globe and Mail – October 14, 2014)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

MONTREAL — Quebec’s attempts to put an end to years of image-corroding uncertainty and lack of clarity for the mining industry are getting mixed reviews.

The Liberal government of Premier Philippe Couillard has revived plans to accelerate natural resource extraction in the vast northern reaches of the province. And the new Mining Act has helped bring greater predictability and transparency to a political environment many critics said was damaging Quebec’s reputation as an attractive jurisdiction for mining investment.

But problems and unresolved issues remain, even factoring in the current global commodities downturn, say some industry players and observers.

Take the case of Strateco Resources Inc., which recently shut down its uranium mining project in the Otish Mountains of northern Quebec after years of what its chief executive says have been frustrating dealings with provincial authorities. “This has been extremely difficult,” Strateco president and chief executive officer Guy Hébert said.

For years, the government declined to grant Strateco the right to start underground exploration at the site, known as Matoush, despite the company jumping through hoops to get 22 permits from Quebec at different phases of the project, he said.

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NEWS RELEASE: First Uranium Concentrate Produced from Ore Mined at Cigar Lake

SASKATOON, SASKATCHEWAN–(Marketwired – Oct. 8, 2014) – ALL AMOUNTS ARE STATED IN CDN $ (UNLESS NOTED)

Cameco (TSX:CCO) (NYSE:CCJ) announced today that the McClean Lake mill has started producing uranium concentrate from ore mined at the Cigar Lake operation in northern Saskatchewan.

The McClean Lake mill, operated by AREVA Resources Canada Inc., recently completed modifications required to safely process the high-grade ore from the Cigar Lake mine. Cigar Lake ore is transported by truck to the McClean Lake mill located 70 kilometres northeast of the minesite for processing.

Mining at Cigar Lake began in March 2014. To date, Cameco has delivered about 1,400 tonnes of ore to McClean Lake. Mining was suspended in July 2014 to allow the orebody to freeze more thoroughly. Mining resumed in the first week of September and ore deliveries to the mill are ongoing. The mill is expected to produce up to 1 million pounds of uranium concentrate from Cigar Lake ore in 2014 and ramp up to its full production rate of 18 million pounds by 2018 (Cameco’s share 9 million pounds).

“Cigar Lake is among the world’s richest and most technically challenging orebodies and I congratulate all of the people who helped to bring it into production,” said Cameco president and CEO Tim Gitzel. “It provides Cameco with a large-scale, low-cost production centre and positions us to take full advantage of the long-term growth we see coming in our industry.”

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Judge upholds 20-yr Grand Canyon mining ban – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – October 2, 2014)

http://www.mineweb.com/

U.S. District Judge David Campbell says no legal authority exists to overturn 1 million-acre land withdrawal near the Grand Canyon.

RENO (MINEWEB) – U.S. District Judge David Campbell has upheld the U.S. Department of Interior’s 20 year-ban on exploration and development of uranium mining claims on 1 million acres near the Grand Canyon National Park.

The withdrawn land includes a north parcel of 550,000 acres, an east parcel of 135,000 acres, and a south parcel of 322,000 acres. Only the mining of a few existing claims will be permitted.

Plaintiffs in the case included the National Mining Association and the Nuclear Energy Institute, the Arizona-Utah Local Economic Coalition, Quaterra Resources, and an individual, Gregory Yount, with interests in uranium mining. Motions for summary judgment were filed by Plaintiffs American Exploration & Mining Association and Yount.

Defendants included the U.S. government, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Grand Canyon Trust, Havasupai Tribe, National Parks Conservation Association and the Sierra Club.

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U.S. Ramping Up Major Renewal in Nuclear Arms – by WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER (New York Times – September 21, 2014)

http://www.nytimes.com/

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A sprawling new plant here in a former soybean field makes the mechanical guts of America’s atomic warheads. Bigger than the Pentagon, full of futuristic gear and thousands of workers, the plant, dedicated last month, modernizes the aging weapons that the United States can fire from missiles, bombers and submarines.

It is part of a nationwide wave of atomic revitalization that includes plans for a new generation of weapon carriers. A recent federal study put the collective price tag, over the next three decades, at up to a trillion dollars.

This expansion comes under a president who campaigned for “a nuclear-free world” and made disarmament a main goal of American defense policy. The original idea was that modest rebuilding of the nation’s crumbling nuclear complex would speed arms refurbishment, raising confidence in the arsenal’s reliability and paving the way for new treaties that would significantly cut the number of warheads.
Instead, because of political deals and geopolitical crises, the Obama administration is engaging in extensive atomic rebuilding while getting only modest arms reductions in return.

Supporters of arms control, as well as some of President Obama’s closest advisers, say their hopes for the president’s vision have turned to baffled disappointment as the modernization of nuclear capabilities has become an end unto itself.

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Time to buy uranium? The best ways to play it – by Brenda Bouw (Globe and Mail – September 29, 2014)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Patience could finally start to pay off for investors waiting for a revival of the uranium market that imploded in the aftermath of Japan’s nuclear disaster in 2011.

After the spot price hit a nine-year low of $28 (U.S.) this spring on oversupply concerns, dragging uranium equities down with it, many investors believe the commodity used to fuel nuclear power plants has finally hit bottom, as the demand picture brightens.

The price has risen about 30 per cent in recent weeks, to $36.50, driven by additional U.S. and European sanctions against Russia, a major uranium supplier, in its conflict with Ukraine. That threatens to put pressure on the global uranium supply, alongside a recent two-week strike at Cameco Corp.’s McArthur River and Key Lake operations in Saskatchewan.

Meantime, Japan is readying the restart of its nuclear program, while China continues its aggressive nuclear plant build-out as part of its strategy to cut pollution by developing cleaner energy sources.

“I think the worst is behind us in the uranium space,” said BMO Nesbitt Burns analyst Edward Sterck. While he doesn’t expect a big rally in uranium and is neutral on the overall sector right now, Mr. Sterck sees investors slowly returning to the space.

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