Hundreds of employees have been left scrambling after the temporary closure of two Northern Saskatchewan uranium mines.
More than 800 workers at the McArthur River mine site and Key Lake processing plant are affected by the closures. The fate of the two plants was announced in November, but the last of the affected workers have now left the sites.
Each facility is expected to close for approximately 10 months. Exact details are likely to be known on Feb. 9, when the company will release its fourth quarter results.
The McArthur River mine was at one point the world’s largest producing uranium mine and is situated in the world’s largest high-grade deposit of uranium.
Before it closed, the mine produced between 18 and 19 million pounds of yellowcake uranium concentrate each year. Ore from the McArthur River site was sent to Key Lake for processing before being shipped out of Northern Saskatchewan.
The closure affected several residents of Flin Flon, Creighton and Denare Beach, as well as businesses in northern Saskatchewan that rely on the mines to operate.
Around 200 maintenance crew and care staff members are staying at the two locations.
Cameco, the owner of both operations, announced a loss of $124 million in the third quarter of 2017 due in large part to slumping uranium prices. The price for uranium has seen a 70 per cent drop since the nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan in March 2011.
The company also shut down its Rabbit Lake mine, at one point the second largest uranium facility in Canada, in 2016. According to Cameco’s website, the Rabbit Lake operation “has transitioned into care and maintenance.”
