Uranium One production jumps 62%

Uranium One said on Monday its quarterly production rose 62 per cent, as Canada's No. 2 uranium producer ramped up output at its Kazakhstan projects.

The company, which also has projects in Australia and the United States, produced 3.4 million pounds of uranium in the fourth quarter, of which about 3.3 million pounds came from its mines in Kazakhstan.

Toronto-based Uranium One also said it will pay $150-million to Russia's Atomredmetzoloto (ARMZ) for a 13.9-per-cent stake in Mantra Resources, under the terms of an earlier disclosed option deal.

ARMZ, Uranium One's largest shareholder, bought Mantra for around $1-billion in 2011.

"Mantra is an appealing project ... and the option provides Uranium One with upside optionality in an environment of rising uranium prices," BMO Nesbitt Burns analysts wrote in a note.

In 2011, Uranium One chief executive officer Chris Sattler had told Reuters that "Mantra's feasibility study had 4.2 million pounds a year."