Uranium Ore | Uranium Mining | Uranium Energy Corp.

Uranium Ore refers to raw material which contains Uranium

This is a test !The raw material that UEC (when their first mine at Goliad begins production in 2010) or any other uranium production company is referred to as uranium concentrates. The chemical symbol of uranium concentrates is U3O8 and other terms that are synonymous with uranium concentrates are “yellowcake”, “concentrates”, “U3O8” and in an advanced form, “uranium hexafluoride” or “UF6”, either in natural or enriched form. When someone speaks of uranium ore, they are referring to the raw material or dirt that contains the uranium. Miners speak of the quality of uranium ore in a term called grade. Grade is a measure of the amount of uranium contained in a ton of uranium ore. In the United States , the uranium ore grade is typically 0.25% or about 5 pounds of U3O8 per ton of uranium ore.

There are several ways to produce or mine the uranium that is the lifeblood of any nuclear power plant. Uranium can be mined by either open pit or underground mines that conventionally haul uranium ore to a processing plant. Typically, these processes remove the overburden that is devoid of any uranium mineralization to expose the uranium laden ore. These techniques require large vehicles to transport the uranium ore to a large and expensive mill, where the rock is crushed and processed chemically to extract the U3O8. In addition there are other techniques including heap leaching and ISL/ISR (discussed below) which do not need an expensive mill to process the uranium ore.

Uranium Mining in the United States

In respect to heap leaching, it is possible to bring the uranium ore to a facility to with a lined trench and the ore is leached with either an acidic or basic solution to extract the U3O8 chemically, thereby avoiding a very capital intensive uranium mill. In these processes, and with the exception of ISL/ISR which is discussed below, there is a considerable issue of what becomes of the “tails” or in the case of typical ore grades in the United States , the other 1995 pounds of uranium ore, which can still be mildly contaminated with uranium or other radioactive daughter products.

As of the middle of 2008, Uranium production is only about 60% of the steady state uranium demand and new production sources must be developed to fill the very large gap that exists. While this gap is being filled with inventories, some of which come from the military sector, these inventories will soon be exhausted. Absent considerable buildup of uranium production going forward, uranium concentrate prices appear poised for another vicious cycle of upward movement even if no new nuclear plants are built as a result of an economic world recession that appears possible at this time.

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