Inside the Irigaray central processing plant

Uranium Energy Corp's Irigaray Central Processing Plant has produced its first dried and drummed uranium concentrates since the resumption of in-situ recovery operations at the company's Christensen Ranch project.

The Irigaray plant, in Wyoming, is the central hub to 11 satellite in-situ recovery (ISR) projects across the Powder River Basin. Uranium Energy Corp (UEC) took ownership of the plant and the orebodies through its 2021 acquisition of Uranium One Americas Inc from Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom.

In January 2024 the company's board of directors approved the restart of the Christensen Ranch ISR operation, with recovered uranium to be processed at Irigaray, and in September the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality gave UEC the go-ahead to increase the plant's licensed production capacity from its current 2.5 million pounds U3O8 (96.2 tU) to 4.0 million pounds U3O8 per year. According to information from the US Energy Information Administration, Irigaray had last produced uranium in 2018.

UEC President and CEO Amir Adnani said the milestone had been reached on schedule, six months into the phased ramp-up of its operations in Wyoming (operations at Christensen Ranch started in August last year). "This marks the culmination of many years of planning and hard work from our entire team and is a testament to their expertise and dedication. UEC’s fully permitted ISR assets provide a cost-efficient foundation for sustainable growth, positioning UEC as a key player in the expanding nuclear energy sector," he said.

ISR - also known as in-situ leach, or ISL - recovers minerals by dissolving them from the orebody in the ground and pumping the resulting solution to the surface where the minerals can be recovered at a processing plant. UEC has two ISR hub and spoke platforms in South Texas and Wyoming, where a central processing plant forms the "hub" with several ISR uranium projects providing "spokes".

The uranium concentrates produced at Irigaray will be transported to the ConverDyn Conversion Facility in Metropolis, Illinois, UEC said.