The Key Lake mine is a former

uranium Uranium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Ura ...

mine Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to: Extraction or digging *Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging *Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine Grammar *Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun M ...

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. It is north of

Saskatoon Saskatoon () is the largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It straddles a bend in the South Saskatchewan River in the central region of the province. It is located along the Trans-Canada Hig ...

by air on the southern rim of the uranium-rich

Athabasca Basin The Athabasca Basin is a region in the Canadian Shield of northern Saskatchewan and Alberta, Canada. It is best known as the world's leading source of high-grade uranium and currently supplies about 20% of the world's uranium. The basin i ...

. Key Lake was initially developed to

open-pit mine Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique that extracts rock or minerals from the earth. Open-pit mines are used when deposits of commercially useful ore or ...

two nearby

uranium ore Uranium ore deposits are economically recoverable concentrations of uranium within Earth's crust. Uranium is one of the most common Chemical element, elements in Earth's crust, being 40 times more common than silver and 500 times more common than ...

deposits: the Gaertner deposit and the Deilmann deposit. Mining of this ore ceased in the late 1990s; the Key Lake mill now processes uranium ore from the McArthur River mine and from existing stockpiles on site. High-grade ore from McArthur river is blended with lower grade local rock before being passed through the mill. The mill has a permitted annual production capacity of 25 million

pound Pound or Pounds may refer to: Units * Pound (currency), various units of currency * Pound sterling, the official currency of the United Kingdom * Pound (mass), a unit of mass * Pound (force), a unit of force * Rail pound, in rail profile * A bas ...

s of U₃O₈. In addition,

ammonium sulfate Ammonium sulfate (American English and international scientific usage; ammonium sulphate in British English); (NH4)2SO4, is an inorganic salt with a number of commercial uses. The most common use is as a soil fertilizer. It contains 21% nitrogen a ...

fertilizer A fertilizer or fertiliser is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from liming materials or other non-nutrient soil amendments. Man ...

is produced as a byproduct from used reagents. The pits of the mined out local deposits are being used as mill

tailings In mining, tailings or tails are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different from overburden, which is the waste rock or other material ...

management facilities. Its deposits jointly remain one of the higher grade large uranium deposits discovered, with an average grade of over 2% U₃O₈. Key Lake was the third largest

deposit in the Athabasca Basin and is surpassed only by McArthur River and Cigar Lake. Uranium exploration was carried out by a joint venture led by Uranerz Exploration and Mining, a subsidiary of German Uranerzbergbau GmbH. Uranium anomalies in lake water detected in 1969 were followed up in 1971 with the location of radioactive

pitchblende Uraninite, also known as pitchblende, is a radioactive, uranium-rich mineral and ore with a chemical composition that is largely UO2 but because of oxidation typically contains variable proportions of U3O8. Radioactive decay of the urani ...

boulders in transported overburden, which were eventually followed back to their source, resulting in the discovery of the Gaertner orebody of the Key Lake deposits in 1975. The nearest village by road is

Pinehouse Pinehouse () is a northern village located in the boreal forest of Saskatchewan on the western shore of Pinehouse Lake within the Canadian Shield. Travelling by road from Pinehouse, the Key Lake mine is north, Prince Albert is south, La ...

, 220 kilometres south of Key Lake. The mine is considered the official northern terminus of

Saskatchewan Highway 914 Highway 914 is a provincial highway in the north-west and far north regions of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The highway begins at a turn in Highway 165 and officially ends at Key Lake mine. It does not intersect with any provincial ...

, as reflected by provincial highway maps, although online mapping such as

Google Maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panorama, interactive panoramic views of streets (Google Street View, Street View ...

suggest the highway continues on to another mine,

McArthur River The McArthur River is a river in the Northern Territory of Australia which flows into the Gulf of Carpentaria at Port McArthur, opposite the Sir Edward Pellew Group of Islands. The river was named by Ludwig Leichhardt while he explored the a ...

, further to the north. In late 2017, citing "continued low uranium prices," Cameco announced that the McArthur River/Key Lake operation would suspend production for approximately ten months starting by the end of January 2018. In July 2018 Cameco announced that this shut-down would extend for an indefinite period of time pending an upswing in the uranium market.

History

Production

Together, between 1983 and 2002, the two Key Lake deposits produced a total of 209.8 million pounds of U₃O₈ at an average grade of 2.32%. In 2017 the mill produced 16.1 million pounds of

yellowcake Yellowcake (also called urania) is a type of powdered uranium concentrate obtained from leach solutions, in an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores. It is a step in the processing of uranium after it has been mined but before ...

Ownership

The Key Lake operation is owned by

Cameco Corporation Cameco Corporation (formerly Canadian Mining and Energy Corporation) is the world's largest publicly traded uranium company, based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. In 2015, it was the world's second largest uranium producer, accounting for 18 ...

(83.33%) and

Orano Canada Orano Canada (formerly AREVA Resources Canada Inc.) is a uranium mining, milling, and exploration company headquartered in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Orano is a subsidiary of the Orano Group, an international nuclear energy company headqua ...

(previously called AREVA Resources Canada Inc) (16.67%), formerly COGEMA Resources Inc.

Cameco Cameco Corporation (formerly Canadian Mining and Energy Corporation) is the world's largest publicly traded uranium company, based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. In 2015, it was the world's second largest uranium producer, accounting for 18 ...

is the operator.

Climate

Wolf attack

A lone timber wolf attacked fifty-five-year-old Fred Desjarlais who was jogging back to the mine's camp on 31 December 2004. Desjarlais tried to frighten the wolf away, but it continued approach and finally jumped on him. He grabbed the wolf around the neck and tried to wrestle it into submission. A busload of his

colleagues spotted the incident and successfully rescued him. The wolf subsequently disappeared into the boreal forest. Desjarlais received stitches when his colleagues took him to a nearby medical facility. A few hours later, an air ambulance took Desjarlais from Key Lake Airport to

Royal University Hospital Royal University Hospital, often abbreviated RUH, is one of four hospitals in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. It is located on the University of Saskatchewan campus. RUH is a teaching hospital and closely tied to the College of Medicine within the ...

where he began a series of rabies treatments. After the attack on Desjarlais, governmental authorities built an electric fence around Key Lake's landfill to prevent further predatory animal attacks on miners.

References

External links

* {{Cite web, url=http://www.cameco.com/mining/key_lake/ , publisher=Cameco Corporation , title=Key Lake , url-status=dead , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090418181037/http://www.cameco.com/mining/key_lake/ , archive-date=18 April 2009 Uranium mines in Canada Mines in Saskatchewan Surface mines in Canada