Wyoming's uranium producers will have to start paying severance taxes again with an increase in uranium prices, according to the Department of Revenue.
Uranium production has been exempt from severance taxes since ]an. 1, 1995, when a state law took effect that said no severance taxes would be collected on uranium until its price reached $14 a pound and stayed there for six months.
But Edmund Schmidt, director of the Revenue Department's mineral tax division, said prices have been above $14 for six months, so producers will be notified they will have to resume the payment of severance taxes.
The price of uranium is now set at 316.50 a pound, compared to $12 a pound last year.
Producers have been paying county ad valorem taxes during their break from severance taxes.
Only two companies are producing uranium in Wyoming in Campbell, Converse and Johnson counties.
Malapai is producing uranium using a leaching process in Johnson and Campbell counties, while Power Resources is running an in situ operation in Converse County.
The State Board of Land Commissioners, however, has approved 21 . applications for uranium leases filed by Pathfinder Mines on state lands in Campbell, Carbon, Johnson and Natrona counties.
Donna Wichers, an official with Pathfinder and COGEMA in Casper, said the applications are for leases dropped by Pathfinder in 1993.
"The price of uranium has come up, so we went back and applied to get them back," she said. We're cautiously optimistic."
The leases surround Pathfinder's existing in situ operations in Campbell and Johnson counties and its remaining reserves in the Shirley Basin and Gas Hills.
