Energy Fuels Inc., owner and operator of the White Mesa Mill near Blanding, has announced that it is resuming vanadium recovery operations at the site. The southeastern Utah mill is the nation’s only operational conventional uranium mill.
Energy Fuels said it expects to recover significant quantities of vanadium from the Blanding operation’s settling ponds. The company stopped recovering vanadium about five years ago due to falling prices for the metal that is primarily used in steel alloys.
Vanadium prices have risen by more than 400 percent over the past 24 months to about $15 per pound. Based on extensive test work and laboratory analysis, the company has identified significant concentrations in the pond that it thinks may contain over 4 million pounds of recoverable vanadium. Energy Fuels said it will produce 500,000 pounds of vanadium in 2018.
The Blanding mill has a long history of conventional vanadium recovery, most recently producing 1.5 million pounds of vanadium in 2013. During its 38-year operating history, the mill has produced over 45 million pounds of vanadium. White Mesa is the only operating facility in the United States with the near-term ability to resume vanadium recovery, Energy Fuels said. During the processing for vanadium, the company also expects to recover significant amounts of uranium from the pond solutions.
Energy Fuels is an integrated U.S. uranium mining company, supplying uranium (U3O8 or “yellow cake”) to major nuclear utilities. Its corporate offices are in Denver and all of its assets and employees are in the western United States. It owns three of America’s key uranium production centers: the White Mesa Mill, the Nichols Ranch Processing Facility in Wyoming, and the Alta Mesa Project in Texas. It also owns uranium mining projects located in a number of states.