New Mexico hasn’t had a uranium boom since 1950. After Navajo shepherd Paddy Martinez woke up from his nap, beneath a limestone ledge with a handful of funny looking yellow rocks, only to be later told he had discovered New Mexico’s first uranium, the state was swarmed with thousands of prospectors hoping to cash in on the nuclear metal.

Another uranium boom may now be in progress. This time, the charge is led by the European consortium Urenco Ltd, general partner of Louisiana Energy Services (LES), which was issued a draft license, this past Friday, by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build and operate a $1.5 billion uranium enrichment plant in Lea County, New Mexico. Louisiana Energy Services is a Urenco-managed partnership, whose members include Exelon Corp, Entergy Corp and Duke Energy Corp. This is the first permit issued for a uranium enrichment facility in thirty years; the first ever to a private company.

Announcement of the uranium enrichment facility came nine days after International Uranium Corporation (IUC) announced it was reopening its uranium mines in the Four Corners region of the western United States. In a company news release, Ron Hochstein, president of IUC, announced, “We intend on utilizing our large capacity mill to its full advantage through toll milling contracts with other future miners in the area…” The company’s White Mesa Mill, only one of two operational uranium mills in the United States, is across from the New Mexico border.

Uranium development companies have acquired uranium properties, abandoned by major oil companies during the uranium drought of the 1980s and 1990s, and could be well positioned to advance those properties through the permitting process. Over the past year, newer uranium companies have entered the state, optimistic the record-high spot uranium price may help finance their exploration and development costs in New Mexico.

With a uranium mill, just past the western border of New Mexico in neighboring Utah, and the soon-to-be-built uranium enrichment facility in southeastern New Mexico, when might the state again become a world-class production center? Only over the past few years has Canada’s Athabasca Basin, with its ultra-high grades of uranium ore, surpassed the cumulative production of New Mexico. The Grants Mineral Belt in northern New Mexico produced more than 340 million pounds of uranium oxide (U3O8, yellowcake) before the uranium depression of the 1980s and 1990s brought New Mexico mining to a standstill. The Grants Mineral Belt produced about 40 percent of all the mined uranium in the United States.

Who is Urenco?

Urenco is short for Uranium Enrichment Company. Three countries – Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom – signed the Treaty of Alemlo (Netherlands) on March 4, 1970 as a way to collaborate in developing centrifuge technology for uranium enrichment. In 1971, three industrial partners – British Nuclear Fuels plc (BNFL), Ultra-Centrifuge Nederland N.V. (UCN) and Uranit GmbH – founded Urenco Ltd. The company has since spun off its Enrichment Technology Company. There are now three wholly owned subsidiaries, based in each of the respective countries.

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