Kazakhstan produced 5040 tons of uranium in the second quarter

1. Businessweek – Kazakhstan, the world’s biggest uranium producer, increased second-quarter output of the radioactive metal by 9 percent from the previous three months to 5,040 metric tons, state-owned Kazatomprom said.

Kazatomprom’s share of production totaled 2,896 tons, also a gain of 9 percent from the first quarter.

The company produced a total of 19,450 tons of uranium in 2011 – 9% up against 2010. Plans exist to increase the figure to 25,000 tons a year by 2015. Estimated net profit of KazAtomProm hit $523.6 million in 2011.

2. Herald Sun – URANIUM miner Energy Resources of Australia has revealed production has more than doubled this year as it recovers from the heavy flooding that hampered output in 2011.

The group’s shares jumped almost 2 per cent yesterday after it declared it had produced almost 1250 tonnes of uranium oxide in the six months to June – up 107 per cent on the same period last year.

But the company has warned it is the last hurrah for its key Ranger deposit, where mining is drawing to a close after 30 years.

Although the group is likely to boost uranium production by 75 per cent between now and December, by 2016 it will see its output dwindle to less than 1700 tonnes a year.

ERA is going to be marking time over the next few years while spending hundreds of millions on new exploration and cleaning up after terminating Ranger.

Mr Taylor said ERA’s other options included going ahead with underground mining near Ranger, where it had identified a 34,000-tonne deposit.

“They are spending nearly $200 million on studies to see how they can get to that uranium and if all goes to plan, they could begin mining it in 2015,” he said.

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