A notice from the United States Department of Commerce could have an ample impact on Saskatchewan’s uranium industry.
The notice, issued on July 18, showed that the American body plans to review whether uranium exports from Saskatchewan could be a national security threat to the United States and proposed issuing tariffs on uranium extracted in the province. The review can take up to 270 days to finish, after which the country will have 90 days to decide any future action on trade.
Cameco, the largest uranium mining company in Saskatchewan, temporarily laid off 845 employees at its Key Lake mill and MacArthur River mine in November. Only maintenance crews and care staff are scheduled to remain at the sites until December 1, when the layoffs are set to expire. About one-third of Cameco’s overall sales last year between $700 million and $800 million in total, were sent to the US.
The Department of Commerce notice was met with condemnation from both sides of the aisle in Saskatchewan politics.
“This review has the potential to lead to new tariffs that would seriously damage our province’s already-struggling mining sector,” reads a release issued by provincial NDP jobs and trade critic Vicki Mowat.
Premier Scott Moe told media on July 20 that he had met with US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross in June and that her will send Ross a letter advocating for Saskatchewan uranium.
Langham refinery
A mining company’s plan to open a refinery outside of Saskatoon may be put on hold.
Fortune Minerals has announced a plan to build a hydrometallurgical refinery near Langham, Sask., could change. For years, Fortune has publicly issued plans for its NICO project, which includes building mines in the Northwest Territories to produce cobalt, gold, bismuth and copper sulphate and transporting concentrate from the site to the Langham refinery.
However, company representatives have said that larger mining and refining companies have reached out to buy the concentrate from the NICO mine, making a refinery in Langham unnecessary.
Several steps involved in the process of building a refinery, including rezoning and property purchases, have yet to be finalized. In a press release, Fortune stated the rezoning process is likely to wrap up later this year, with construction on the refinery – if needed – set to start in 2019.
Fortune also owns a copper-silver-gold deposit about 25 kilometres north of the NICO project site.
Alberts Lake
Copper Reef is touting its latest results from a property near Flin Flon.
Analysis of a series of electromagnetic anomalies around the company’s Alberts Lake property has shown high volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) targets.
The company plans to pursue four versatile time domain electromagnetic (VTEM) anomalies this summer, including prospecting and possible drilling at some sites. Another three VTEM targets were also found and will be examined by Copper Reef next summer.
Each of the targets is located around the Alberts Lake area on land owned by Copper Reef.
In addition, the company released results from the latest round of gold assays from a site north of the Alberts Lake site. Out of nine samples, seven of them showed grades of gold (ranging from 3.36 to 29.18 grams per tonne) and silver (from 2.9 to 71.2 grams per tonne). An additional chip sample showed 7.34 grams per tonne of gold and 11.9 grams per tonne of silver.
