Company plans to build U.S.'s — and Utah's — 2nd uranium mill
John Rogers
Western Uranium & Vanadium Corp. has announced plans to build the nation’s second uranium processing plant in rural Utah. Longtime uranium pioneer George Glasier, CEO of Western Uranium, made the announcement in late January. Glasier has acquired land in the Green River Industrial Park in Emery County and he said the planning and permitting process is underway.
Glasier said the facility will be designed and constructed to recover uranium, vanadium and cobalt from ore mined both from mines owned by Western and ore produced by other miners. Selecting and acquiring the processing site has taken over a year because the site requires road, power and water infrastructure. The site was also selected based on the support of local municipal and county officials, he said.
According to a release from Western Uranium, the facility will utilize the latest processing technology, including Western’s patented kinetic separation process, which uses water instead of the toxic chemicals used in other uranium separation processes. These technology advancements will result in lower capital and processing costs, making the refinery economically viable, even if uranium and vanadium prices fall.
Western’s currently producing Sunday Mines Complex, just over the border near Western’s headquarters in Nucla, Colorado, and planned production from the San Rafael Uranium Project, located eight miles west of the facility site in Emery County, will initially provide uranium and vanadium ore for the facility. Glasier said the capacity of the facility can be scaled-up as Western develops additional mines or to process ore for other mining companies requiring third-party processing services.
Glasier believes he can have the mine and mill operational as soon as late 2025. The facility is expected to be initially licensed and constructed for annual production of 2 million pounds of uranium U3O8 and 6 to 8 million pounds of vanadium V2O5. Glasier said that at the request of a number of individuals and entities, the facility will also be designed to recover cobalt, a metal essential in battery technology and electric vehicles. Within the state of Utah, there are numerous occurrences of cobalt which may be economical to mine, if a processing facility were available. Construction of the cobalt circuit at the facility will be dependent on the availability of feed material, Glasier said.
Glasier helped build Energy Fuels White Mesa processing plant in San Juan County, currently the nation’s only operating uranium mill. He served as Energy Fuels’ president and CEO from 2006 to 2011 and launched Western in 2014 as a publicly traded company based in Canada.
The proposed Green River facility is not the only Utah refinery planned to compete with White Mesa. Anfield Energy, a publicly traded company based in Toronto, has announced plans to revive an old mill in Shootaring Canyon in Garfield County. The mill closed in 1983 after just six months of operation due to plummeting uranium prices.
Glasier’s detractors have voiced doubt over the economic sustainability of his project. But in a release, Western said, “Western is confident that the uranium market is in the early stages of a sustained upswing. Supply and demand are in balance at present, due to historical inventory, but demand is projected to far exceed available supply in the next several years.”
Western also thinks the vanadium market is poised for growth as vanadium redox flow batteries are increasingly deployed as stationary energy storage solutions. Vanadium prices are projected to increase, as new sources of supply are needed.
“This is one of the most significant events in the history of our company,” said Glasier. “The processing facility, when completed, will provide Western with uranium and vanadium to sell into improving markets and thus result in substantial cash flow from operations.”