World Uranium Mining

(November 2009)

• About 60 percent of the world's production of uranium from mines is from Canada, Australia and Kazakhstan.
• An increasing proportion of uranium is produced by in situ leaching.
• After a decade of falling mine production to 1993, output of uranium has generally risen since then and now meets 67% of demand for power generation. 

Canada produces the largest share of uranium from mines (20.5% of world supply from mines), followed by Kazakhstan (19.4%) and Australia (19.2%). 

Production from mines (tonnes U)

Forecast production for 2009 is 49,375 tU, as eight new mines are scheduled to start production.

Mining methods have been changing. In 1990, 55% of world production came from underground mines, but this shrunk dramatically to 1999, with 33% then. From 2000 the new Canadian mines increase it again, and with Olympic Dam it is now around half.  In situ leach (ISL, or ISR) mining has been steadily increasing its share of the total.

In 2008 production was as follows:

(considering Olympic Dam as by-product rather than in underground category)

Conventional mines have a mill where the ore is crushed, ground and then leached with sulfuric acid to dissolve the uranium oxides. At the mill of a conventional mine, or the treatment plant of an ISL operation, the uranium then separated by ion exchange before being dried and packed, usually as U3O8. Some mills and ISL operations use carbonate leaching instead of sulphuric acid, depending on the orebody. Where uranium is recovered a s a by-product, eg of copper or phosphate, the treatment process is likely to be more complex.

Since the early 1990s the uranium production industry has been consolidated by takeovers, mergers and closures. In 2008, ten companies marketed 87% of the world's uranium mine production:

The largest-producing uranium mines in 2008 were:

New Mines

Canada has two major mines likely to come into production in 2011:  Cameco's Cigar Lake underground mine is being developed for 2011 start-up.  It will truck ore for treatment at McClean Lake and Rabbit Lake mills, 70 km away, eventually to produce 7000 tU/yr.  With this and the now-delayed Midwest mine operating, Canadian output could be substantially be concentrated at two mills:  McClean Lake producing about 7600 tU and Key Lake 7000 tU per year, with about 3400 t/yr coming from Rabbit Lake.   (See also Information Paper on Canada).

In Australia there are plans progressively to increase the uranium output of Olympic Dam, to about 16,000 tonnes U per year, and two smaller ISL mines are due to start production by about 2010.    (See also Information Paper on Australia).

In Kazakhstan a number of ISL mines are due to start over the next few years, taking Kazakh uranium production to about 15,000 tU per year by 2010.

With the recovery of uranium prices since about 2003, there is a lot of activity in preparing to open new mines in many countries.  The WNA reference scenario projects world uranium demand as about 74,000 tU in 2015, and most of this will need to come directly from mines (in 2007 36% came from secondary sources).

Western World Uranium Production and Demand 1945-2004

Known Recoverable Resources* of Uranium 2007

Reasonably Assured Resources plus Inferred Resources, to US$ 130/kg U, 1/1/07, from OECD NEA & IAEA, Uranium 2007: Resources, Production and Demand ("Red Book").

Sources:
World Nuclear Association