Today’s blog entry continues with the theme introduced yesterday − that the future for nuclear power, and therefore uranium mining, is looking brighter.

In Canada, the provinces of Ontario, Québec and New Brunswick currently have nuclear reactors. Nuclear power is most important in Ontario, where it presently accounts for 44% of all electricity generation. The Bruce station in Ontario (at 1,000 megawatts) is the largest nuclear facility in North America.

As for future prospects, Ontario is planning to build at least two more reactors; a refurbishment of the LePreau reactor in New Brunswick is underway, with a possible second unit being bandied about; and in Alberta, consideration is being given to building a nuclear reactor to serve the energy firms in the Tar Sands.

As for the supply of uranium, all of Canada’s output comes from the province of Saskatchewan (since the last mine in Ontario closed down about a decade ago). In fact, Saskatchewan accounts for about one-third of the world’s total supply of uranium. The three large producing mines in the north of the province are: (1) McArthur River; (2) Rabbit Lake; and (3) McLean Lake, all located in the Athabasca Basin.

McArthur River has the world’s largest high-grade uranium deposit. Ore is milled at the Key Lake operation a relatively short distance away. The combined facility is owned 70% by Cameco Corp. and 30% by Areva NC (formerly known as Cogema) of France. Publicly-traded Cameco Corp. was formed by the merger of Eldorado Nuclear Ltd. and the Saskatchewan Mining Development Corp. (two former Crown entities) in 1988. Cameco is the largest uranium producer in the world.

A fourth major mine in Saskatchewan, Cigar Lake (also owned mainly by Cameco and Areva), is under development, but its target date to begin operations has been pushed back due to underground flooding.

Much of the information for this blog entry (over three days) comes from several articles in two magazines, Resource World (February 2008) and Bloomberg Markets (March 2008).

Alex Carrick

Find Canadian construction-related economic articles in Canadian Construction Market News and in the Economic Outlook section of Daily Commercial News.

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08/13/2008 - posted by e8005

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