Gas Hills uranium mine plan is still on
staff and wire reports
Wyoming's leading uranium producer plans to continue with its work to open a new uranium mine in Fremont County despite the company's sale to a Canadian company.
Cameco Corp., a company from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, has agreed to buy all of the North American holdings of Magnox Electric, which owns Power Resources, a Casper company.
Power Resources produces uranium from its Highland ISL Mine and Mill about 30 miles north of Glenrock. PRI also has identified some 30 million pounds of uranium in the East Gas Hills near the UP Zone shaft which was sunk, but reclaimed before producing ore after the pricing collapse of the 1980s.
"The company hopes that the purchase by Cameco will not disrupt the plans for the new mine, said Steve Morzenti, Power Resources' vice president of development.
"We certainly hope that Cameco will see the acquisition (of Power Resources) as an opportunity to expand the uranium production base here in Wyoming,,' he said. "But we had intended to do that Gas Hills project whether the acquisition occurred or not."
Morzenti said the company is finishing its baseline and feasibility studies on the mine, along with the necessary applications to develop an in-situ leach mine. The company has invested around $700,000 in its Gas Hills Project this year, planning to have production of uranium concentrate from Gas Hills within about two years.
"The project is really still in the development stage, but we would hope to see production from the mine certainly before the end of the decade," he said.
The mine would be close in size to the company's Glenrock mine, where about 60 workers are employed. The mine produces more than 1 million pounds of uranium per year.
Assuming satisfactory confirmation, PRI will undertake a very ambitious developmental program for the Gas Hills project next year.
Plans call trucking uranium slurry to tbe Highland Mill. A satellite processing plant might be constructed within the huge Carol Sbop to allow for partial concentration before shipment to the Highland Mill.
Cameco's acquisition of Magnox Electric properties must be approved by regulatory agencies.