Uranium Energy’s Sweetwater uranium complex in Wyoming has been selected by the US government for a fast-tracked process of approval to add in-situ recovery capability, it said on Tuesday.
In March, President Donald Trump had invoked emergency powers to boost domestic production of critical minerals as part of a broad effort to offset China’s near-total control of the sector.
The Uranium miner wants approval to use in-situ recovery mining methods within the existing permit boundary and to expand the boundary to include ISR-amenable deposits on nearby federally managed lands.
In-situ mineral extraction combines drilling, rock fracturing and chemical leaching directly at the drill site.
The Sweetwater facility has been added to the FAST-41 transparency dashboard, a federal initiative launched in 2015 to streamline approvals of critical infrastructure, the company said.
“On completing this tack-on permitting initiative, Sweetwater will be the largest dual-feed uranium facility in the United States, licensed to process both conventional ore and ISR resin,” CEO Amir Adnani said.
Sweetwater’s uranium complex in Illinois has a 3,000 ton per day conventional mill and an existing licensed capacity of 4.1 million pounds of U3O8 per year, the company said.
In April, the White House had said it would fast-track permitting for 10 mining projects across the country as part of Trump’s push to expand critical minerals production.
(By Pooja Menon; Editing by Sahal Muhammed)
