Canadian uranium fuel cycle firm Cameco has cancelled a public hearing on its application to licence the Millenium Mine after withdrawing an application submitted in early 2014 to licence the new Athabasca Basin mine, 600 km north of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
Cameco said on its website that it wrote to the Canadian nuclear regulator "citing economic conditions that were not favourable to proceeding further with the Millennium approval".
Measured resources of the underground mine were said to be 1.4 million tonnes as of end 2013. The indicated grade of U3O8 was 2.39% and content is 75.9 million lbs U3O8.
"Cameco will continue to do some limited work related to Millennium in order to be in a position to resubmit our application should market signals indicate new uranium mine projects are required," it also said.
The Millenium deposit was discovered in 2000. The project to licence the deposit is operated by Cameco on behalf of the Cree Extension Joint Venture partners (Cameco (42%), JCU (Canada) Exploration Company Limited (30%) and AREVA Resources Canada Inc. (28%)), according to a 2010 scoping document for the environmental impact assessment.
In 2013 Cameco applied for, and received, Saskatchewan ministry of environment approval for the Millenium project.
Photo: Millenium exploration camp on the shores of Slush Lake. Image from Cameco.
