Areva Resources Canada Inc. is considering trucking ore 920 kilometres from the McArthur River uranium mine to be processed at its McClean Lake mill. The plan, which has not yet reached the proposal stage, would keep operations at Areva's 70 per cent owned McClean Lake facility going while it waits for ore from Cameco Corp.'s Cigar Lake deposit, said Areva spokesperson Alun Richards. Ore from McArthur River, which is 30.2 per cent owned by Areva, is milled at the nearby Key Lake facility.
Uranium mining at the McClean Lake operation ended in January, leaving the specialized facility without a nearby ore resource. The mill is set to process ore from Cigar Lake, in which it has a 31.7 per cent share -- a plan that has been delayed after flooding at the mine pushed operations back by several years.
At the moment, the plan is to ship about three million pounds of uranium ore slurry in special trucks and containers from McArthur to McClean until Cigar Lake comes on stream. According to Cameco, 13.1 million pounds of U3O8 [5038 t U] is set to be mined from McArthur River and Key Lake in 2009.