Work has resumed at the McArthur River uranium mine in Saskatchewan (Canada). The mine was shut down for three months after being flooded on April 6, 2003*. The Canadian safety authorities granted all the necessary licenses for it to begin operating again.
All the facilities damaged in the flood have been restored. The ingress of water that brought production to a standstill has been canalized but not completely stopped. According to CAMECO, the mine operator, final plugging should be completed by the end of August.
COGEMA is pleased to see the mine in operation again. Provided there are no more technical hitches, the financial consequences of the outage on the Group's operating income should be around 10 million euro, as was initially announced.
*see press releases of April 8 and 16, 2003.
Facts:
- 275 people are employed at the McArthur River mine.
- 7,100 tons of uranium were extracted in 2002 and processed at the Key Lake plant.
- CAMECO has a 70% share in the mine and COGEMA 30%
- COGEMA's share of McArthur's production in 2002 amounted to 2,158 tons of uranium (29% of the total production for the Group in 2002).
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Vincent Benoit
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Frédéric Potelle
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