In-situ recovery – or ISR – is a method of mining uranium by dissolving and recovering it via wells. It is also known as in-situ leaching. Ground water fortified with a complexing agent, and often with an oxidant (such as gaseous oxygen), is introduced into the orebody to dissolve the uranium from the sandstone host. The uranium-bearing before being recovered and processed into yellowcake.
Uranium Energy Corp (UEC) has two ISR hub and spoke platforms in South Texas and Wyoming, with a central processing plant as the “hub” with several ISR uranium projects providing “spokes”. Production from Burke Hollow will be processed at the company’s Hobson Central Processing Plant, which is licensed to produce up to 4 million pounds of uranium per year.
“The startup of Burke Hollow is a significant achievement for UEC, advancing the project from a grassroots discovery in 2012 to production in 2026,” UEC President and CEO Amir Adnani said. “With two ISR operations now producing, and our Ludeman ISR project planned for startup in 2027, we are building a scalable, multi-faceted platform supported by the largest uranium resource base in the United States.”
According to UEC, Burke Hollow is the largest ISR uranium discovery in the USA in the past decade, with significant long-term development potential: only about half of the property, which covers some 20,000 acres (over 8,000 hectares) has been explored to date. The estimated mineral resource for the project is currently 6,155,000 pounds U3O8 (2,368 tU) in the measured and indicated category, plus 4,883,000 pounds U3O8 of inferred resources.
Production was able to start following the receipt of final approvals from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). Craig Wall, UEC’s Vice President, Environmental, Health & Safety, Texas said the commission’s approval, coming after more than a decade of exploration, permitting and development, “reflects the strength of our technical and operational execution. We appreciate the collaboration and professionalism of the TCEQ throughout the process and look forward to continuing to work with them as the project advances.”
UEC’s South Texas team will now focus on ramping operations and constructing additional wellfields across the project.
In addition to the largest uranium resource base in the USA, with 12 million pounds per year of uranium production capacity across its Wyoming and South Texas hub-and-spoke ISR operations, UEC also controls extensive land and resource portfolios in Canada’s Athabasca Basin, including the Roughrider Project in Saskatchewan. The company is also pursuing domestic refining and conversion capabilities in the USA through its United States Uranium Refining & Conversion Corp subsidiary.
