Cigar Lake uranium mine expected to produce up to 16 million pounds in '16

Cameco Corp. said recently that the Cigar Lake uranium mining operation in Saskatchewan, Canada, is likely to produce approximately 16 million pounds of triuranium octoxide this year.

All mined material at Cigar Lake is processed through the McClean Lake operation and is packaged at the site. Cameco said it owns approximately 50 percent of the Cigar Lake mine and that its share of this expected yield would be approximately 8 million pounds of uranium. The remaining ownership over the facility belongs to IDemitsu Canada Resources Ltd., with 7.875 percent; TEPCO Resources, with 5 percent and the remaining 37.1 percent belonging to AREVA Canada Resources.

The processing facility is also owned by AREVAMcClean Lake is authorized to manage an annual production output of 13 million pounds. Cameco said AREVA plans to request that the license threshold be increased to be able to process additional uranium material from the mine.

Final production at Cigar Lake in 2015 will be issued with Cameco’s quarterly report in February.

Cameco focuses on the production of uranium material and also supplies conversion and fuel manufacturing services. The company has exploration projects in Australia, Asia and the Americas.