Uranium demand gives mines a boost

NATURITA, Colo. — Miners are once again digging into the buckled brushy expanses of the Colorado Plateau in a search for the yellow rock that signals a payoff. It's not the sparkle of gold they're after. It's the eggy tinge of oxidation on ore that contains uranium.

In canyons and on mesas still dotted with the rusted head frames of uranium mines that have been shut down for more than two decades, three mines have been reopened this year. More are being considered for reopening as uranium prices climb.

The revival would have been unheard of just a few years ago, said Stuart Sanderson with the Colorado Mining Association. "But with the price of natural gas going up, we're seeing an increased demand for coal and uranium."

What's happening in Colorado's uranium belt is a far cry from the boom that once dominated this area. But analysts' predictions that uranium prices will continue to climb has made it feasible to bring the industry back to life.

"We've spent several million refurbishing our mill and getting our mines back in shape," said Jerry Powers, a manager for Lakewood-based Cotter Corp.

Cotter reopened its first mine in the Paradox Valley in southwest Colorado in the summer and plans to open its fourth and fifth next spring. The company currently employs two dozen people in the west end of Montrose County and expects to have 60 at work by the end of 2005.

Those local numbers hang on global figures that show the 435 nuclear reactors in the world — including 104 in the U.S. — need 180 million pounds of uranium annually. Global production has been half that.

That gap between supply and demand has pushed uranium and vanadium prices to their highest levels in more than 20 years, since the meltdown at Three Mile Island and the explosion at the Chernobyl plant put the brakes on new nuclear power plants.

Uranium is currently selling for $20.50 per pound after selling for as low as $7.50 per pound in 2001. Industry predictions have it climbing as high as $25 to $35 per pound before it levels off. And the steel-hardener vanadium that comes from the same ore has jumped from less than $2 per pound to around $10.

Those prices are behind the new and stepped-up uranium mining in Canada, Australia and Africa. And it follows that revival also would occur in one of the largest uranium reserves in the United States, a bean-shaped area that stretches from Grants, N.M., through the Paradox Valley, and over the border into Utah.