Cameco’s flooded Cigar Lake uranium mine – what are the technical options?

Cigar Lake work on track, delayed or postponed? Cigar Lake to be abandoned? What is the truth in all these swirling rumours concerning Cameco’s flagship uranium mine? 

Whatever it is, we won’t hear it any time soon—and that observation presumes that there is a “truth.” I suspect that everybody involved in the now-flooded workings is scrambling too hard to fix things to debate a Platonic “truth,” which leaves the investor not simply guessing but, in practice, gambling. 

Let us have a look at the technicalities to see if we can probe deeper than news releases and stock speculations. (And look at a more recent article on this blog.)

Your salary scorecard in now available from the National Mining Association

Statistics can be boring, except when they relate to your job and salary. The National Mining Association has a great collection of mining-related statistics, including a comparison of mining salaries with general industry salaries. The 2005 average annual mining salary in Alaska was $72,125, the highest in the United States. This compares to the average salary in Alaska of all industries of $38,817. The lowest paid miners appear to work in  Mississippi, taking home $39,025 compared to the average industrial worker who takes home $29,201. 

Gaffe by Cudeco’s chairman gets in the way of a good ore body

The following is not a recommendation to invest. Nor is it, strictly speaking, a financial analysis of a mine or mining company. It is simply another in the series of pieces on this blog on the techno-human side of mining and the concept that people make companies successful, but only if they have honesty and a good ore body. The following comes from the pen of Ben Young, a geologist in Australia. 

CuDeco Limited produces high purity copper sulfate pentahydrate from the Mt Norma copper oxide deposit in Queensland, Cloncurry. In addition CuDeco has explored the Rocklands Copper Project 15 km from Cloncurry and 35 km from Xstrata Plc’s Ernest Henry Copper mine.

Australian Greens’ plan to curb coal will cost A$24 billion

You too can contribute to this blog, and if I can entice you, maybe even get you going on your own blog. Thus it is an honor to welcome Ben Young to the course. Here is how he describes himself:

I have a bachelor degree in geology, majoring in petrology, and I am currently working as a mine geologist in a large open-cut base-metal mine in Queensland, Australia. While my job requires specialization in mining and production optimization, the greater mining industry in Australia is a firm interest.

He has provided this first piece. Let us hope it is only the beginning of many that lead to I THINK MINING AUSTRALIA.