 | |
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| TSX: FCU | |
| Industry | Uranium mining |
| Founded | 2013 |
| Founder | Dev Randhawa |
| Headquarters | , Canada |
Key people |
|
Number of employees | 39 (2016) |
| Website | fissionuranium.com |
Fission Uranium Corp. is a mineral exploration company. It is engaged in the exploration and development of uranium assets. Its sole project is the Patterson Lake South (PLS) Project located in Canada's Athabasca Basin District. [2]
Fission's history can be traced directly to Strathmore Minerals Corp., a firm founded in 1996 by Dev Randhawa. [3] Under his leadership, Strathmore Minerals spun out Fission Energy Corp in 2008, [4] and time Randhawa left Strathmore to run Fission Energy. Ross McElroy joined Fission Energy and led the company's technical team to its first major discovery: the J Zone at Waterbury Lake in Saskatchewan's Athabasca Basin.
A second discovery, at PLS in the Athabasca Basin, was made in November 2012. In 2013, Fission Uranium Corp. was spun out of Fission Energy b after a deal was made with Denison Mines Corp to acquire all assets except PLS. [5] In January, 2015, Fission Uranium announced a major resource estimate in the indicated and inferred categories which, at that time, was the largest undeveloped resource in the Athabasca Basin region. [6]
In Fall 2015, Fission Uranium became embroiled in a dispute with a small group of dissident shareholders over an attempted merger with Denison Mines Corp. The deal was opposed by some of the company's shareholders, who staged an attempted ‘proxy fight’ [7] The attempt failed and Fission's incumbent board of directors received an overwhelming majority of the shareholder vote [8] [9]
In January 2016, Fission Uranium Corporation entered into an agreement with Hong Kong-based utility subsidiary CGN Mining, which took a 19.9% share in the company and purchased up to 35% of annual production from the Patterson Lake South project for the investment of $82 million at a price of $0.85. [10]
The PLS project is Fission's core asset and is host to the Triple R deposit, the undeveloped uranium deposit in Canada's Athabasca Basin District. [11] The property consists of around 17 contiguous claims totaling over 30,000 hectares located approximately 550 kilometers north-northwest of the city of Prince Albert and 150 kilometers north of the community of La Loche. The PLS Property is located within the Mid-Boreal Upland Ecoregion of the Boreal Shield Ecozone. [12] In December 2016 the company announced it would conduct a 10,000 metre drill program to test regional targets outside of the Triple R Deposit. [13]
The PLS project is on traditional lands belonging to the Clearwater River Dene Nation, and in 2021, CRDN said they did not support the project. [14]
In February 2017 Fission announced it had expanded near-surface, high-grade uranium zones at each end of its 2.6 kilometer mineralized trend as well as discovered new mineralization located 660 metres from the R840W zone. [15]
In April 2017 Fission reported it had expanded the R1515W zone and in turn extended the mineralized trend at Patterson Lake South to 3.17 kilometers. [16]
Fission Uranium and its management and technical teams have won a series of awards since its founding. These include: The Northern Miners "Mining Person/s of the Year, 2013", [17] PDAC's "Bill Dennis Award for a Canadian Discovery and Prospecting Success, 2014" [18] and The Mining Journal's "Exploration of the Year, 2015". [19]
The Athabasca Basin is a region in the Canadian Shield of northern Saskatchewan and Alberta, Canada. It is best known as the world's leading source of high-grade uranium and currently supplies about 20% of the world's uranium.
Rabbit Lake is the second largest uranium milling facility in the western world, and is the longest-operating uranium production facility in Saskatchewan. The facility is located approximately 800 km north of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, on the northeast edge of the uranium rich Athabasca Basin. The closest community is Wollaston Lake, about 40 kilometers by lake or air. Rabbit Lake was the first Canadian mine to offer a seven-days-in/seven-days-out commuter system of staffing. Access is provided by Highway 905. Production at Rabbit Lake was suspended in April 2016.
Denison Mines Corp. is a Canadian uranium exploration, development, and production company. Founded by Stephen B. Roman, and best known for its uranium mining in Blind River and Elliot Lake, it later diversified into coal, potash, and other projects.
Paladin Energy Ltd is a Western Australian based uranium production company.
During the late 1970s and through the 1980s, Mohave and Coconino County, Arizona, immediately north and south of the Grand Canyon and west of the Navajo Indian Reservation were explored for Arizona breccia pipe uranium mineralization. The search area included the region between the Colorado River and the Utah border known as the “Arizona Strip”.
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Uranium mining in Colorado, United States, goes back to 1872, when pitchblende ore was taken from gold mines near Central City, Colorado. The Colorado uranium industry has seen booms and busts, but continues to this day. Not counting byproduct uranium from phosphate, Colorado is considered to have the third largest uranium reserves of any US state, behind Wyoming and New Mexico.
Uranium mining in Wyoming was formerly a much larger industry than it is today. Wyoming once had many operating uranium mines, and still has the largest known uranium ore reserves of any state in the U.S. At the end of 2008, the state had estimated reserves dependent on price: 539 million pounds of uranium oxide at $50 per pound, and 1,227 million pounds at $100 per pound.
Uranium ore deposits are economically recoverable concentrations of uranium within the Earth's crust. Uranium is one of the most common elements in the Earth's crust, being 40 times more common than silver and 500 times more common than gold. It can be found almost everywhere in rock, soil, rivers, and oceans. The challenge for commercial uranium extraction is to find those areas where the concentrations are adequate to form an economically viable deposit. The primary use for uranium obtained from mining is in fuel for nuclear reactors.
Uranium mining in Arizona has taken place since 1918. Prior to the uranium boom of the late 1940s, uranium in Arizona was a byproduct of vanadium mining of the mineral carnotite.
Uranium mining in New Mexico was a significant industry from the early 1950s until the early 1980s. Although New Mexico has the second largest identified uranium ore reserves of any state in the United States, no uranium ore has been mined in New Mexico since 1998.
Uranium One is an international group of companies, part of the management circuit of the TENEX Group of Rosatom State Corporation. Since 2013, it is a wholly owned subsidiary of Moscow-based Uranium One Group, a part of the Russian state-owned nuclear corporation Rosatom.
In 2006, Cambodia's mineral resources remained, to a large extent, unexplored. Between 2003 and 2006, however, foreign investors from Australia, China, South Korea, Thailand, and the United States began to express their interest in Cambodia's potential for offshore oil and gas as well as such land-based metallic minerals as bauxite, copper, gold, and iron ore, and such industrial minerals as gemstones and limestone.
Mining is the biggest contributor to Namibia's economy in terms of revenue. It accounts for 25% of the country's income. Its contribution to the gross domestic product is also very important and makes it one of the largest economic sectors of the country. Namibia produces diamonds, uranium, copper, magnesium, zinc, silver, gold, lead, semi-precious stones and industrial minerals. The majority of revenue comes from diamond mining. In 2014, Namibia was the fourth-largest exporter of non-fuel minerals in Africa.
Canada is the world's second-largest producer of uranium, behind Kazakhstan. In 2009, 20% of the world's primary uranium production came from mines in Canada. 14.5% of the world production came from one mine, McArthur River. Currently, the only producing area in Canada is northern Saskatchewan, although other areas have had active mines in the past.
Orano Canada is a uranium mining, milling, and exploration company headquartered in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Orano is a subsidiary of the Orano Group, an international nuclear energy company headquartered in Paris, France with 16,000 employees worldwide.
Hathor Exploration Limited is a uranium exploration company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Its exploration office is located in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Hathor's exploration projects concentrate on properties within the Athabasca Basin of Northern Saskatchewan, Canada.
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The world's largest producer of uranium is Kazakhstan, which in 2019 produced 43% of the world's mining output. Canada was the next largest producer with a 13% share, followed by Australia with 12%. Uranium has been mined in every continent except Antarctica.
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