An exploration camp at AREVAS' Kiggavik uranium project near Baker Lake. The company has submitted the final environmental impact statement for the project. The Nunavut Impact Review Board will now begin its technical review of the proposal. - photo courtesy of Areva Resources |
Uranium proposal takes next step
Nunavut Impact Review Board board to evaluate Kiggavik impact statement
Walter Strong
Northern News Services
Published Monday, October 27, 2014
QAMANITTUAQ/BAKER LAKE
With 750 construction jobs, up to 600 mining jobs, 1,300 indirect jobs and approximately $1 billion in taxes and royalties on the line, AREVA's Kiggavik uranium project could have a big impact on the Kivalliq region.
Those statistics are drawn from the company's recently filed final environmental impact statement. The 10,000-page document represents six years of study and is a major milestone for the project's development.
It now sits with the Nunavut Impact Review Board to make a decision on recommending the project to the federal minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada for final approval.
That process is expected to take a year or more.
Located about 80 km west of Baker Lake, the proposed mine would take three years to build, five years to decommission and produce uranium concentrate - yellowcake - for 14 years, with a possible expansion of resources and life of mine.
In the six years since AREVA began work on its final submission for the $2.1 billion project - which would cost $240 million per year to operate - the price of uranium has dropped from around USD$70 per pound to a nine-year low of USD$28 per pound earlier this summer.
Uranium prices have recovered slightly this summer to approximately $35 per pound but they are still far off from pre-Fukushima nuclear disaster prices.
"It's not a viable project at that price," said Barry McCallum, AREVA's manager of Nunavut Affairs. "But prices change and prices are anticipated to increase as the demand for uranium affects the prices."
The problem, industry analysts say, is that supply and demand are essentially in line. With the slow restart to the Japanese nuclear industry, demand is slow to reassert itself.
"Our intention is to complete the environmental review process - probably another year - and then look at a development decision after that," McCallum said.
The company has spent more than $100 million on the project since it was proposed in 2008. McCallum described AREVA as taking a long view on the property.
"It's not a good project for today but it's a good project for a better day and we anticipate that a better day will occur," McCallum said. "AREVA's intention is to develop this mine."
The review board will begin a technical review, which is expected to conclude in the middle of January. A public comment period would follow leading up to a board
report on the project.
"That will likely take us to mid-2015," McCallum said. "Then the minister's decision would come some time later."
Board and ministerial approval would not guarantee a project start and an investment decision would still have to follow.
"We've operated in Canada now for about 50 years and we've done that by making sound business decisions," McCallum said. "We wish to make a sound business decision on this project as well."
AREVA is multinational giant in the nuclear industry. The French company is both a producer and consumer of uranium, taking contracts for both raw yellowcake and for nuclear fuel.
The company has more than 50,000 employees worldwide with approximately 5,000 employed in AREVA's mining division.
