US-based uranium mining and exploration company Uranium Energy Corp (UEC) on Tuesday announced the acquisition of Uranium One Americas (U1A) for $112-million in cash and the replacement of $19-million in reclamation bonding.
U1A is a subsidiary of Uranium One, which is part of Russia’s State atomic company Rosatom.
“The opportunity to acquire an advanced asset base of this quality from one of the global leaders in the nuclear energy sector is highly rare in the uranium sector anywhere in the world, let alone in our own home jurisdiction of the United States,” said president and CEO Amir Adnani.
The U1A assets are primarily situated in the Powder River basin of Wyoming; the most productive in-situ recovery (ISR) uranium mining district.
Adnani noted that the purchase price was equal to only 12% of UEC’s current enterprise value, yet the acquisition doubled the size of its production capacity in three key categories: total number of permitted US ISR projects, resources, and processing infrastructure.
The acquisition would create the Wyoming hub-and-spoke operations for UEC, anchored by U1A’s Irigaray plant, which was one of the biggest central processing facilities in the US with a licensed capacity of 2.5-million pounds a year of U3O8.
UEC would incorporate U1A's production-ready assets, including Christensen Ranch ISR project with four fully installed wellfields, and six additional permitted or development-stage satellite ISR projects, combining with UEC's Reno Creek project.
The company said it also expected significant capital expenditure savings and deep operating synergies with its permitted and nearby Reno Creek ISR project, which is 72 km from the Irigaray plant.
UEC stated that its ISR production profile would increase to 6.5-million pounds a year of U3O8, based on licensed and installed capacity at its Wyoming and South Texas hub-and-spoke operations.
"Combined with our physical holdings of 4.1-million pounds of US warehoused uranium, we now have the unparalleled ability to provide reliable domestic supply to the US uranium reserve as well as re-emerging demand from American and global nuclear utilities,” Adnani said.
UEC chairperson and former US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham commented that the acquisition would accelerate and strengthen the development of domestic uranium production to supply US origin uranium for a full range of America's uranium requirements.