OCR Text |
Show Atlas Plans New Vanadium Circuit At Moab Uranium-Mill, Report Says - Plans are being made by officials of Atlas Minerals Division of Atlas Corporation to reopen the vanadium circuit cir-cuit of the Moab mill, it was announced this week in the company's annual report. Principal item responsible for the decision to open the circuit, which has been closed clos-ed since a devastating fire at the mill several years ago, w as the discovery of what appears to be a major new uranium mine in the Moab area which has ore containing a high vanadium content. Considerably more drilling drill-ing will be necessary to determine de-termine the value of the new property, company officials stated this week, but the discovery dis-covery has produced considerable consid-erable optimism. The report stated, relative to the reopening of the vanadium van-adium circuit: "It is believed that such additions and alterations al-terations to the Moab mill would place the Minerals Division Div-ision in a very strong position pos-ition for the future not only with respect to its own ores, but also with respect to obtaining ob-taining commitments for pro cessing at the mill of comparable com-parable ores owned by others. "It would also enable the division to make strong bids when the AEC puts up for public bidding certain lands in the so-called Uravan Minerals Min-erals Belt of Colorado which are known to contain ores bearing both uranium and vanadium." The report stated that the company plans to begin mining min-ing ore soon from its properties pro-perties in the Green River Mining District properties which have been under dev-elopement dev-elopement the past year. Since the Green River Mining Min-ing District ores have been milled continually in the Moab mill, it is not felt by observers ob-servers that the new discovery dis-covery talked about in the report is in that particular area. Company officials were reluctant to discuss the new property in any detail, pre- fering "to wait until they had more definite information, following a drilling and blocking block-ing program. The construction of a vanadium van-adium circuit at Moab would not be an easy and quick undertaking. Following ap proval of an AEC license to proceed, a considerable time would have to be allowed allow-ed for construction. One company com-pany official stated that it might take as much as a year to gain an approved application ap-plication from the AEC, due to detailed plans that must be approved along with such an application. The annual report stated that time may well work to the advantage of the company. The long-term market for uranium, it said, had improved im-proved in price and demand recently. "While prices and demand for current deliveries deliv-eries remain low, the prices which utilities and other buyers buy-ers are currently willing to pay for uranium delivered in the second half of this decade are very attractive to uranium producers, and the demand for uranium in that period is currently strong and growing. The price for vanadium has been strong over the last year." Atlas ended the year with a net profit of $704. 9 thousand which is considerably higher than the previous year's figure fig-ure of $411 thousand. |