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CANADA’S Cameco has entered into an agreement which could see it gain majority ownership of a technology to harvest uranium from the waste streams of phosphate fertiliser production.

Australian company Uranium Equities is developing the PhosEnergy technology through US-registered Urtek, in which it has a 43% interest with the rights to acquire up to 90%. Under the deal, Cameco will have the right to acquire up to 70% of this 90% stake after a staged $16.5m investment beginning with $2.5m followed by two tranches of $5m and a final $4m.

Cameco, which accounts for around 15% of world uranium production from its mines in north America, has also agreed to fund at least half of Uranium Equities' investment to construct a commercial plant, subject to the completion of the $16.5m arrangement. Pilot-scale operations have shown that the PhosEnergy process is capable of producing uranium for $25–30/ lb with over 90% uranium recovery, according to Uranium Equities.

Extraction of U₃O₈ from phosphoric acid streams from fertiliser plants peaked at over 4.5m lb /y in the early 1980s. By the early 1990s – with the price of uranium below $20/lb – this approach was abandoned as uneconomic, however long-term and spot prices for uranium have been tracking at above $45/lb for the last three years.

With over 100m t  of phosphate rock processed into fertiliser worldwide each year, Uranium Equities estimates that up to 19m lb of U₃O₈is contained in resultant phosphoric acid byproduct streams. The company says the PhosEnergy process can extract uranium that is present at low levels in at least half of the world’s phosphate rock resources at a lower cost than traditional methods, with less waste and a higher quality end product.