Christensen Ranch Satellite Plant Interior
Uranium Energy Corp (UEC) said it has completed the steps required to resume operations at the Christensen Ranch in-situ recovery (ISR) Project in Johnson County, Wyoming.
“With demand increasing for uranium supply from stable geopolitical jurisdictions and U.S. national security objectives, we foresee an increasingly urgent need for domestic uranium supply,” Amir Adnani, president and CEO, UEC, said. “The fundamental drivers of supply and demand, including pending legislation to ban Russian uranium imports to the U.S., are translating into rising uranium prices that have accelerated UEC’s production readiness program. In that regard, we have been working towards restarting production to fulfill the need for domestic uranium.”
UEC acquired Uranium One Americas, Inc. from Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation, Rosatom, in December 2021. The repatriation of the assets to U.S. ownership has been a transformative acquisition for the company, positioning it as the largest, fully permitted, low-cost ISR project resource base of any U.S.-based producer.
The portfolio is anchored by the Irigaray Central Processing Plant (CPP) and includes over 20 uranium projects, 100,000 acres of land and 4 fully permitted ISR projects. These assets include the Christensen Ranch ISR operations that, combined with early Irigaray production, produced more than 6 million lb of uranium before being placed on care and maintenance in 2018.
During this period, the company said it has been maintaining and upgrading key production infrastructure, including its wellfields and the satellite ion exchange plant, have been maintained. Uranium recovered from Christensen Ranch will be processed at UEC’s Irigaray CPP.
The Irigaray CPP is the centerpiece of the company’s Wyoming ISR Hub and Spoke operations. It was originally constructed by Westinghouse Electric and was later expanded by U1A in 2010, adding two resin elution circuits and additional precipitation capacity. The Irigaray CPP is one of the largest uranium CPPs in the U.S., licensed for 2.5 million lb of uranium production per year with pending plans to increase the licensed capacity to 4 million lb/y.
