Uranium from Powder River Basin will be processed by Cameco

Uranium resin that Uranerz Energy Corporation is producing in the Powder River Basin by will now be turned to yellowcake by Cameco Resources – a subsidiary of the nation’s largest, publicly traded uranium company.

The agreement between the two companies was announced this week.

Derrick Iwanaka is a Uranerz spokesperson. He says the yellowcake will eventually be turned into fuel rods and sold to utility companies for nuclear power plants.

"I think the nuclear is here to stay, it has been shaken up and I think that once the new generation of nuclear reactors start up and even some of the existing ones are upgraded, that we should have a very safe and long future with nuclear power."

Iwanaka  hopes to begin producing between 6-and-8-hundred-thousand pounds of uranium resin by 2013, and ramp up production to 1.5 million pounds by 2017. He says none of the resin produced at Smith Ranch will be used for military applications.