SIC 1094 Uranium-Radium-Vanadium Ores

Encyclopedia of American Industries | 2005 | Copyright

SIC 1094
URANIUM-RADIUM-VANADIUM ORES

This category covers establishments primarily engaged in mining, milling, or otherwise preparing uranium, radium, or vanadium ores.

NAICS Code(s)

212291 (Uranium-Radium-Vanadium Ore Mining)

Industry Snapshot

Domestic uranium mining is essentially a dying industry, no longer kept afloat by the military demand that launched mining in the 1940s, nor the commercial nuclear power industry that provided the major source of more recent demand. In 1992 production of uranium ore from underground mines fell near zero, with any production of uranium coming from by-products. As an indication of the collapse of uranium mining, total mine production peaked in 1980 at 21,850 tons of ore before declining to 1,550 tons in 1995; 1992 marked the first year since 1948—when uranium mining was initiated in the United States—that no new ore was mined from underground mines. In 2001 the United States mined 1,300 tons of uranium. Current U.S. demand for uranium is about 22,550 tons per year, of which less than 6 percent is met by new domestic production. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 2001 only three commercial uranium mines were active.

Organization and Structure

In 1987 approximately 101 establishments were engaged in the extraction of uranium, radium, and vanadium ores from mines in the United States. These establishments employed about 2,300 workers who produced approximately $268 million worth of ores. The number of employees had dropped to 1,200 by 1992 (48 percent below the 1987 total) and then to about 700 (70 percent below the 1987 total) by 1997. Value added through mining increased in 1997 to $90 million, as compared with $69.4 million in 1992; the 1997 figure was a substantial decline, however, from the 1987 value of $174.7 million. Furthermore, these figures were down sharply from the 1982 census, when output value was $223.9 million, value added was $578.8 million, and the industry employed 10,500 workers. Industry shipments totaled $103.2 million in 1997.

Uranium. The collapse of uranium production in the early to mid-1990s was an intensification of the steady decline of U.S. uranium mining since the late 1970s. Import pressure remained strong. In fact, 83 percent of U.S. demand for uranium was satisfied through imports in 1998—imports as a share of domestic consumption rose from a low of 26 percent in 1983 to 51 percent in 1988, 45 percent in 1989, and 80 percent in 1990—mostly from low-cost producers, such as Canada and Australia. Net imports fluctuated around zero in the 1960s and 1970s, as the government tried to maintain self-sufficiency, but the U.S. market was swamped by imports in the 1980s. In 1998 Canada supplied 34 percent of the United States' foreign-origin uranium, while Russia supplied 14 percent, Australia supplied 13 percent, and South Africa and Uzbekistan both supplied 6 percent. The United States sold 15.1 million pounds of uranium to foreign suppliers and utilities in 1998, 11 percent less than 1997.

In addition to the relatively high cost of mining uranium in the United States, which has hurt the industry's competitive position worldwide, the U.S. uranium industry has always relied heavily on federal government subsidies and protection to keep its markets afloat. Thus, as federal support for the industry was gradually removed, the industry's viability quickly came into question. Because uranium is a one-market commodity, the fall in nuclear-powered electricity generation negatively affected the uranium market. Even uranium inventories held by U.S. utilities continued to fall in the early 1990s. This growing supply-demand gap has sent prices plummeting, creating, from the industry's perspective if not a social perspective, unwanted additions to inventories from nuclear disarmament.

The federal government remains a primary producer and purchaser of uranium ores. To counteract the import dependency, the United States instituted restrictions on imports from former Eastern Bloc countries—mainly Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

Radium. Radium is a white metal that does not occur in a free state; it must be refined from pitchblende and occurs naturally only as a disintegration product in the radioactive decay of thorium, uranium, or actinium. Radium itself continues to decay into radon, bismuth, polonium, lead, or thallium. Radium was important for radiation treatment of cancer, but it has been replaced by other isotopes that can be produced at a lower cost and have greater effectiveness in treatment. It was also used for petroleum prospecting but has also been replaced in this application. Radium...

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