World Uranium Mining

(Updated May 2010)

• About 63 percent of the world's production of uranium from mines is from Kazakhstan, Canada and Australia.
• An increasing proportion of uranium, now 36%, is produced by in situ leaching.
• After a decade of falling mine production to 1993, output of uranium has generally risen since then and now meets 76% of demand for power generation. 

Kazakhstan produces the largest share of uranium from mines (27% of world supply from mines), followed by Canada (20%) and Australia (16%). 

Production from mines (tonnes U)

WNA Market Report data

Forecast production for 2010 is about 55,000 tU, as production ramps up in Kazakhstan and Namibia.

Mining methods have been changing. In 1990, 55% of world production came from underground mines, but this shrunk dramatically to 1999, with 33% then. From 2000 the new Canadian mines increase it again, and with Olympic Dam it is now approaching half.  In situ leach (ISL, or ISR) mining has been steadily increasing its share of the total.

In 2009 production was as follows:

(considering Olympic Dam as by-product rather than in underground category)

Conventional mines have a mill where the ore is crushed, ground and then leached with sulfuric acid to dissolve the uranium oxides. At the mill of a conventional mine, or the treatment plant of an ISL operation, the uranium then separated by ion exchange before being dried and packed, usually as U3O8. Some mills and ISL operations use carbonate leaching instead of sulfuric acid, depending on the orebody. Where uranium is recovered a s a by-product, eg of copper or phosphate, the treatment process is likely to be more complex.

Since the early 1990s the uranium production industry has been consolidated by takeovers, mergers and closures. In 2009, ten companies marketed 89% of the world's uranium mine production:

The largest-producing uranium mines in 2009 were:

The next 16 uranium mines in 2009 were:

New Mines

Since the recovery of uranium prices since about 2003, there has been a lot of activity in preparing to open new mines in many countries.  The WNA reference scenario projects world uranium demand as about 77,000 tU in 2015, and most of this will need to come directly from mines (in 2009, 24% came from secondary sources).

Western World Uranium Production and Demand 1945-2004

Source:World Nuclear Association

Known Recoverable Resources* of Uranium 2007

Reasonably Assured Resources plus Inferred Resources, to US$ 130/kg U, 1/1/07, from OECD NEA & IAEA, Uranium 2007: Resources, Production and Demand ("Red Book").

Sources:
World Nuclear Association