Ur-Energy starts mining at Shirley Basin, boosting U.S. uranium supply
Shirley Basin is no longer just a memory in Wyoming. Ur-Energy has begun capturing uranium-bearing solution there, adding up to 2.0 million pounds a year of licensed capacity.
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Ur-Energy has turned Shirley Basin from a long-running development story into an active uranium mine, with uranium-bearing solution now being captured from Mine Unit 1 at the Wyoming project. The startup marks the shift from construction and permitting to initial operations at the company’s second in-situ recovery, or ISR, uranium project.
The scale matters. Ur-Energy says Shirley Basin carries about 9.1 million pounds of measured and indicated U3O8 at an average grade of 0.22 percent eU3O8, with licensed annual wellfield and toll processing capacity of up to 2.0 million pounds equivalent of U3O8. The company estimates a mine life of about nine years across three shallow mining units, and says the start of production increases its licensed production capacity by roughly 83 percent. Combined with Lost Creek, Ur-Energy says its licensed annual production and toll processing capacity reaches 4.2 million pounds U3O8.
That makes Shirley Basin more than a ribbon-cutting. It gives the U.S. uranium sector another domestic source at a time when fuel-cycle security has moved closer to the center of the nuclear debate. For a market still leaning heavily on imports, a new ISR operation in Wyoming is not enough to rewrite North American supply on its own, but it is a real addition to the pipeline that feeds reactors.
Shirley Basin also carries a hard-to-ignore backstory. Uranium was first produced there in March 1960, and U.S. Department of Energy materials say a uranium mill at Shirley Basin South processed ore from 1962 to 1974 and again from 1978 to 1985 using conventional acid leach processing. Low prices eventually shut the district down in 1992. Ur-Energy acquired Shirley Basin in 2013 through its purchase of Pathfinder Mines Corporation from an AREVA affiliate, and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the license transfer that July.
That history gives the restart a revival story as well as a commercial one. Ur-Energy says Pathfinder and its predecessors produced more than 71 million pounds of uranium from the Shirley Basin and Lucky Mc mine sites, mostly from the 1960s through the 1990s. Matt Gili framed the launch as a pivotal step in the company’s growth strategy, tying a once-dormant district back to domestic fuel supply just as U.S. nuclear buildout, life extensions and supply security are all pushing more attention upstream. Shirley Basin is not just back in play. It is back in production.
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