(Wyoming Business Report, December 19) – A new report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory indicates that coal generation could and should become more flexible in the future, though conversions would be pricey. Currently, coal is used widely as baseload generation because it can’t cycle on or off quickly, among other concerns. Other generation can react […]
US Mining Equipment Makers Set for $500M in Fresh Sales
(Financial Times, December 19) – Caterpillar said US mining equipment manufacturers are set for more than $500m in fresh sales after the approval of nearly $700m in government-backed financing for an Australian iron ore mine. On Thursday, the Export-Import Bank, whose mission is to create export-related US jobs, approved the loan to the A$10bn Roy Hill mining […]
Mining for Uranium at Lost Creek
(Casper Star Tribune, December 15) – There is no giant hole in the ground. No tunnels. No nothing, really, that one would typically associate with a mine. And yet this is the Lost Creek uranium mine, the $100 million facility Ur-Energy opened earlier this year. The miners, as Steven Hatten likes to call them, aren’t really […]
Wyoming Uranium Miners Look to Capitalize on End of Russian Exchange Program
(Casper Star Tribune, December 15) – It is hard to imagine, staring out into the expanse of the Great Divide Basin, how events in Russia could shape the future of the Lost Creek uranium mine. The closest town, Bairoil (pop. 106), is some 30 miles of bumpy dirt road away. The Wind River Mountains to the […]
Ur-Energy Ships First Batch of Yellowcake
(Wyoming Business Report, December 4) – Soon after receiving a $34 million state bond loan, Casper-based Ur-Energy has shipped its first batch of yellowcake to a processing facility in Illinois. From its Lost Creek in-situ uranium recovery project near Wamsuttter, the company trucked out 35,000 pounds of yellowcake yesterday, or about 44 steel drums that are mostly […]
Uranerz Hires COO as Nichols Ranch Wraps Up
(Wyoming Business Report, December 2) – CASPER – While young uranium-mining company Uranerz is finishing its first facility at Nichols Ranch, it has announced that it has hired a new president and chief operating officer. Paul Goranson comes to Uranerz fresh from being president of Cameco Resources, a major competitor to the uranium upstart. According […]
Wyoming Committee Starts Push for State Ownership of Federal Lands
(Casper Star Tribune, November 21) – A select legislative committee Wednesday voted to take the first step in an attempt to transfer federal public lands in Wyoming to state ownership. Legislators on the Select Federal Natural Resource Management Committee voted for draft legislation to establish a new select committee to conduct further study of federal […]
Coffey Engineering Purchases Colorado Firm
(Wyoming Business Report, November 19) – Bucking the trend in which out-of-state companies gobble up Wyoming establishments, Coffey Engineering is reaching across the border to acquire the Loveland, Colo. branch of Westwood Professional Services. Coffey Engineering & Surveying LLC got its start in Laramie 60 years ago, changing its name to the present one in 2005 […]
Wyoming Tops Federal Energy Disbursements
(Wyomnig Business Report, November 19) – Wyoming was again the top-grossing state for federal disbursements for energy production on federal lands and waters for fiscal year 2013. The state will collect about $932,475,000 in mineral royalties, which the U.S. Department of the Interior inexplicably rounded up to $933 million in a release. Despite the rounding error, […]
Uranerz Poised to Open Nichols Ranch
(Wyoming Business Report, November 13) – Casper-based Uranerz continues to operate at a heavy loss while constructing its first in-situ recovery leach uranium mine at Nichols Ranch in the Powder River Basin. However, the facility construction is drawing to a close and the company is poised to go into production, according to Vice President of Operations […]