The Alta Mesa mine is a joint venture of enCore Energy and Boss Energy. The start-up of production at Alta Mesa will see enCore become the only U.S. uranium producer with multiple production facilities currently in operation. It is the second start-up in eight weeks for Boss Energy. The first shipment of yellowcake from the Alta Mesa mine is expected in sixty to ninety days' time.
The previously producing in-situ leach project includes the fully licensed and constructed Alta Mesa Uranium Central Processing Plant (CPP) and wellfield. It was acquired by enCore from Energy Fuels Inc in February of 2023 for one hundred and twenty million dollars. In December of 2023, the company entered into an agreement with Australia's Boss Energy which resulted in Boss acquiring a thirty percent stake. The mine is operated by enCore.
Paul Goranson is the EnCore CEO. He said that the company has advanced the project from acquisition to the completion of upgrades, wellfield installation and production within fifteen months. Alta Mesa is the company's second producing asset to come online. The Rosita CPP, also located in South Texas, resumed production in late 2023 after being offline since 2008, and shipped its first uranium in March.
Goranson said, “Our strategy at Alta Mesa is to initiate phased ramp-up from the wellfield located in Production Authorization Area 7 (PAA-7), increasing production progressively and consistently as additional injection and recovery wells are systematically tied into the production lines. As we continue to increase production from PAA-7, work has commenced on the second new wellfield at Production Authorization Area 8 with a goal of achieving full operational capacity by 2026. We are very pleased with our initial early production providing enCore with a second revenue source as we continue to build out the Alta Mesa Project.”
The Alta Mesa CPP has a total processing capacity of one and a half million pounds of U3O8 per year with additional drying capacity of half a million pounds. It produced nearly five million pounds U3O8 between 2005 and 2013, when production was curtailed due to low uranium prices.
Currently, oxygenated water is used to extract uranium from the orebody. It is being circulated in the wellfield through injection or extraction wells plumbed directly into the primary pipelines feeding the CPP. enCore said that the expansion of the wellfield will continue with production to steadily increase from the wellfield as expansion continues through 2024 and beyond,
In April of this year, Boss Energy's Honeymoon project in South Australia produced its first drum of uranium in more than a decade. Managing Director Duncan Craib said the start of production at the Alta Mesa Project is another important milestone in the company's strategy to be a global uranium supplier with a diversified production base in tier-one locations.
Craib added, “With operations now ramping up at both Honeymoon and Alta Mesa, we are on track to hit our combined nameplate production target of 3 million pounds of uranium per annum. Our timing could hardly be better given the increasingly tight supply and demand fundamentals in the uranium market.”