Energy Fuels suspends uranium transports in response to Navajo challenge

07 August 2024

US uranium producer Energy Fuels Inc has voluntarily suspended transportation of uranium across Navajo lands after the Navajo Nation challenged the legality of the transport. The company said it is working with the Navajo Nation to find a resolution.

Buu Nygren issues the executive order prohibiting uranium transport (Image: Navajo Nation Office of the President)

Late last year, Energy Fuels announced that it had started production at the Pinyon Plain mine in Arizona, as well as at the La Sal project in Eastern Utah, with ore from those mines to be stockpiled at its White Mesa mill in Utah for processing. For Pinyon Plain, this involves trucking material over Navajo Nation lands.

On 31 July, Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren issued an executive order banning the transport of radioactive material through the Navajo Nation without a prior agreement, citing Navajo laws regarding the transport of radioactive materials in the Navajo Nation Natural Resources Protection Act of 2005 and the Navajo Nation’s 2012 Radioactive and Related Substances, Equipment, Vehicles, Persons and Materials Transportation Act. The order will last for six months. Nygren said the order had been signed after Energy Fuels the previous day transported an estimated 50 tonnes of uranium ore through tribal lands without providing the notice required under the 2012 law.

Energy Fuels had informed federal, state, county, and tribal officials more than 10 days earlier about the legal requirements, safety, emergency response, and the imminent shipping of uranium ore, though without giving a specific date.

In the company's second quarter earnings call on 5 August, CEO Mark Chalmers said the company believes it has the necessary licences and rights for the shipments but respects the Navajo Nation's concerns and has voluntarily suspended shipments. Both sides are "looking for a resolution" on moving forward, he said.

Energy Fuels and its predecessor companies had completed uranium shipments across the reservation lands for many decades up to the last shipment, which took place in 2022, without a single incident, Chalmers said, and had worked with members of the Navajo nation, including arranging visits to the mines and mill to witness loading and unloading "so that they were comfortable with those shipments." According to the company's presentation, around half of the employees at the White Mesa mill are Navajo and Native American.

President Nygren wants the legacy of Cold War era uranium mining operations on Navajo land to be addressed (Image: Navajo Nation Office of the President)

Legacy issues

One of the reasons for the Navajo Nation's concerns is a "long legacy of uranium issues that have nothing to do with Energy Fuels - most were created by legacy arrangements with the US Government during the Cold War," he said, but the company was working with the Navajo Nation to address these concerns. "The biggest issue … is they want safe transport of materials across the Navajo nation, and we absolutely respect that. We absolutely respect that it has to be done safely - we have done it over time, and we plan to sit down with them to make sure that it is safely transported," he said.

Nygren's office also highlighted the legacy of Cold War uranium mining activities in a 2 August blog post, which said the President's deployment of tribal police to intercept Energy Fuels' uranium transport trucks had been "because of his priority to clean up abandoned uranium mines and mills."

Between 1944 and 1986, more than 30 million tonnes of uranium ore was extracted from the Navajo Nation for the US nuclear weapons programme, but the legacy of those operations - including radioactive contamination impacts on Navajo miners and their families - has not been adressed.

"Cleanup of these 500 abandoned uranium mine and mill sites is a major priority of my administration," President Nygren said. "It is why I deployed the Navajo Nation police to block what I think is the illegal transport of uranium ore across the Navajo Nation. Cleanup must happen first, and the trauma associated with premature sickness and death from the legacies of it."

Ramp up continues

Energy Fuels plans to ramp up ore production from Pinyon Plain, La Sal and Pandora to a production run-rate of around 1.1 to 1.4 million pounds of U3O8 per year by late-2024. The transport moratorium is not expected to hold back development work at Pinyon Plain, Chalmers said.

Alternative transport routes exist and "will all be part of the discussions", he said. "But the route that we have across the reservation is a route that has been studied extensively and it is really the best route, and we intend to continue down that path, but let us continue our discussions with the Navajo nation because, again, we are respectful of their concerns… let's figure out how to alleviate those concerns."

The company expects to produce a total of 150,000-500,000 pounds U3O8 (57.7- 192.3 tU) during 2024 from stockpiled alternate feed materials and newly mined ore.

IsoEnergy reopens US underground uranium mine

08 August 2024

The main decline at the Tony M mine in Utah was successfully reopened on 26 July, and work has begun to rehabilitate the underground workings.

The IsoEnergy team and Garfield County representatives in front of the main portal at Tony M (Image: CNW Group/IsoEnergy Ltd)

Initial observations of underground conditions indicate that the main decline and underground equipment shops are in good condition, IsoEnergy Ltd said. Rehabilitation of the underground, including scaling, installation of ground support and ventilation systems, is expected to take 8 to 10 weeks depending on the ground conditions encountered.

The underground rehabilitation work is being carried out by Tomcat Mining. IsoEnergy is also working with international mining consulting firms SRK Consulting Ltd, on the design and implementation of the ventilation plans, and Call & Nicholas Inc, on the design and implementation of the ground control plans.

As sections of the underground are made safe for entry, it is expected that exploration and geological work will begin to map out the orebody from underground. IsoEnergy is also in the process of contracting a surveying company to complete a LiDAR survey of the complete underground at Tony M. This will be the first time any such survey has been completed at the mine and will be an important tool in future mine planning.

The Saskatoon-based company has been working towards reopening the Tony M underground for access over the course of the last year. Site communications have been re-established, and electrical systems have been upgraded and refurbished where necessary, including the installation of "at least" one new generator meeting the US Environmental Protection Agency's Tier 4 emission standards, it said. Several new fans have been installed and will continue to be installed as part of the rehabilitation, and several existing fans are to be refurbished.

The company announced last February its strategic decision to reopen the past-producing mine during the first half of this year, with the aim of restarting uranium production operations in 2025, depending on market conditions. Energy Fuels Inc's White Mesa - the only currently operational conventional uranium mill in the USA - is within trucking distance to Tony M, and IsoEnergy has a toll-milling agreement which guarantees it access to the mill's capacity.

Garfield County Commissioner Jerry Taylor and IsoEnergy COO Marty Tunney underground at Tony M (Image: CNW Group/IsoEnergy Ltd)

IsoEnergy CEO and Director Philip Williams said: "The reopening of underground at Tony M is an important step in restarting production and establishing IsoEnergy as a near-term uranium producer. Long-term uranium prices have nearly doubled, from USD41/lb U3O8 to USD79/lb U3O8, since we acquired the Tony M, Daneros and Rim Mines in Utah, and with the exceedingly positive global outlook for nuclear power we expect that trend to continue. We believe that proven producing assets in tier one jurisdictions, like Tony M, will be highly coveted by end users making this an ideal time to pursue a restart."

The fully-permitted mine is in Garfield County and is about 66 miles (107 km) from the town of Blanding. It produced nearly one million pounds of U3O8 during two different periods of operation from 1979-1984 and from 2007-2008. It was acquired by IsoEnergy on the company's share-for-share merger with Consolidated Uranium Inc, completed last December. Tony M's current NI 43-101 estimated resources stand at 6.606 million pounds U3O8 (2541 tU) of indicated resources and 2.218 million pounds U3O8 in the inferred resources category.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News