Cameco Announces Progress in Cigar Lake Remed
Cameco Announces Progress in Cigar Lake Remediation
February 19, 2008: 06:37 PM EST
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Cameco Corporation (TSX: CCO) (NYSE: CCJ) announced today that significant progress has been made in remediation efforts at the Cigar Lake uranium project.
Remediation work has been underway since October 2006 when a rockfall resulted in a flood of the underground development. Construction was about 60% complete at that time.
We have completed pouring a concrete barrier in the area of the inflow and reinforcing a tunnel adjacent to the rockfall. This includes injection of cement into the rock around the area of the inflow to seal off the area. In addition, we have just completed a test on the effectiveness of the underground seal. The results are positive and demonstrate that the seal is effective with no indication of plug deterioration throughout the six-day testing period. Additional testing will be conducted as we prepare to dewater the mine.
On February 12, 2008, we began testing the effectiveness of the seal by pumping water from the shaft down to approximately 100 metres below surface. When the water was down to that level, the pumps were turned off and we measured the rate at which the water rose in the shaft. The water was allowed to rise to a set elevation before pumping it down again to the 100-metre level. This procedure was repeated a number of times during the test period which ended on February 18, 2008.
There are a number of activities that must now take place before we can begin dewatering the underground development. We need to complete an assessment to determine if depressurization, reinforcement or other precautionary measures are necessary in two other areas of the mine. We anticipate results from this assessment in the first quarter of 2008 and can then determine if additional remediation is required in these areas.
In addition to the technical work, we need to complete many of the corrective actions arising from the root cause investigation before applying for regulatory approval to dewater the mine.
We are preparing a regulatory application to allow dewatering of the underground development and all other remediation activities leading up to, but not including the restart of mine construction. We plan to submit this application to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in the first half of the year. Therefore, if the application is approved we anticipate dewatering in the second half of 2008, as previously announced.
Cameco is also conducting an assessment of the partially completed second shaft to gather more detailed images of the structures and geology to facilitate mine remediation and future mine planning. We are targeting substantial completion of this assessment in the first half of 2008.
Installation of the ventilation fans on surface, slurry load-out facilities and surface pipelines is currently underway at the site.
We continue to anticipate production startup by 2011 at the earliest. We will be able to provide a firmer production date after the mine has been dewatered, the condition of the underground development has been assessed, and the findings incorporated in the new mine development and production plans.
Cameco owns 50% and is operator of the Cigar Lake project located in northern Saskatchewan.
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