SXR Uranium to Boost Output, Cut Costs at Dominion
SXR Uranium One Inc., owner of South Africa’s largest undeveloped uranium deposit, will boost production and cut costs by mining uranium and gold from waste dumps at its Dominion project.
The dump sites may contain 1.2 million pounds of uranium and 55,000 ounces of gold, Toronto-based SXR said today in a statement to Johannesburg’s stock exchange.
Estimates of the uranium resource at the South African project have increased 37 percent since June to 64.9 million pounds, the company said. Output may rise to 7 million pounds uranium by 2015, it said. The resource figure represents the amount of uranium at the mine, northwest of Johannesburg, including that which may not be mined profitably.
SXR plans to start production at Dominion, its first uranium mine, this quarter. Uranium prices doubled last year to $72 a pound as demand from nuclear power plants strengthened. Uranium is an element enriched and then processed as fuel for nuclear plants.
SXR also raised its estimate of gold at the project by 17 percent to 1.1 million ounces.
Shares of the company fell 1.88 rand, or 2 percent, to 87.92 in Johannesburg, giving SXR a market value of 10 billion rand ($1.4 billion).
Source: www.bloomberg.com
