Paladin says uranium price increase still low

Paladin Africa, miners of uranium at the Kayerekera mine in Karonga, says it will not resume its operations any time soon despite a slight improvement in the global uranium prices.

Paladin Africa general manager for international affairs, Greg Walker, said in a phone interview that the price improvement is not as substantial to influence a decision reversal on Kayerekera.

“There is still a long way to go for the company to resume operations at the mine,” said Walker.

“It all depends on when the global uranium prices would fully recover. We would only resume operations when the mineral is trading between US$70 and US$75, but as it stands, the price remains relatively low,” he said.

Currently, the yellow cake is being traded at US$38 per ounce on the global market, up from US$28 it was fetching in July.

Dwindling global uranium prices forced the Australian miner to suspend the Kayerekera uranium mine last May, which is now under a care and maintenance process.

“The improvement in prices is encouraging, but obviously there is still a long way to go in terms of prices stabilisation. Nothing has substantially changed and we still have a long way to go,” said Walker.

Paladin Africa was given a 15 year contract to mine uranium at Kayerekera in 2009.