WNA reported in late 2020 that over two-thirds of the world's production of uranium from mines is from Kazakhstan, Canada and Australia. An increasing amount of uranium, now over 50%, is produced by in situ leaching. Kazakhstan produces the largest share of uranium from mines (42% of world supply from mines in 2019), followed by Canada (13%) and Australia (12%).
Mining methods have been changing. In 1990, 55% of world production came from underground mines, but this shrunk dramatically to 1999, with 33% then. From 2000 the new Canadian mines increased it again. In situ leach (ISL, also called in situ recovery, ISR) mining has been steadily increasing its share of the total, mainly due to Kazakhstan, and in 2019 accounted for over half of production.
Conventional mines have a mill where the ore is crushed, ground and then leached with sulfuric acid to dissolve the uranium oxides. At the mill of a conventional mine, or the treatment plant of an ISL operation, the uranium then separated by ion exchange before being dried and packed, usually as U3O8. Some mills and ISL operations (especially in the USA) use carbonate leaching instead of sulfuric acid, depending on the orebody. Where uranium is recovered as a by-product, e.g. of copper or phosphate, the treatment process is likely to be more complex.
During the 1990s the uranium production industry was consolidated by takeovers, mergers and closures, but this has diversified again with Kazakhstan's multinational ownership structure. Over half of uranium mine production is from state-owned mining companies, some of which prioritize secure supply over market considerations. In 2019, the top 10 companies by production contributed over 85% of the world's uranium production.
Identified resources recoverable (reasonably assured resources plus inferred resources), to $130/kg U, 1/1/19, from OECD NEA & IAEA, Uranium 2020: Resources, Production and Demand ('Red Book'). The total recoverable identified resources to $260/kg U is 8.070 million tonnes U.
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