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9 Reasons Mining Investors are Looking at Yukon Companies

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In the mining industry, location is paramount.

Invest your capital in a jurisdiction that doesn’t respect that investment, or in a place with little geological potential, and it’s possible that it will end up going to waste.

That’s why, when there’s a place on the map that has world-class geology and also a plan for working with miners and new explorers, the money begins to flow to take advantage of that potential.

Why Investors are Looking at the Yukon

Today’s infographic comes to us from the Yukon Mining Alliance and it shows nine reasons on why people are investing in Yukon mining and exploration companies today.

9 Reasons Mining Investors are Looking at Yukon Companies

For resource investors, it is rare to see variables like government investment, jurisdiction, geological potential, and investment from major mining companies all aligning.

However, in the Yukon, it seems this may be the case.

9 Reasons for the Yukon

Here are nine reasons the Yukon is starting to attract more investment capital:

1. Rich History
Mining was central to the Yukon even over a century ago, when over 100,000 fortune-seekers stampeded into the Yukon with the goal of striking it rich in the famous Klondike Gold Rush.

2. Geological Profile
In the last decade, there have been major discoveries of gold, silver, copper, zinc, and lead in the Yukon – but perhaps most interestingly, only 12% of the Yukon has been staked, making the region highly under-explored. Spending on exploration and development rose from $93 million to $158 million from 2015-2017.

3. Major Investment
Major mining companies now have a stake in the polymetallic rush. Recent companies to foray into the Yukon include Agnico-Eagle, Barrick, Couer Mining, Goldcorp, Kinross, and Newmont.

4. Leaders in Exploration and Mining
Juniors in the region are working on new geological ideas as well as new technology to unlock the vast potential of the region.

5. Progressive Partnerships
First Nations and the Government of Yukon have recently championed a new government-to-government relationship that enables them to be on the exact same page when it comes to mineral projects.

6. Government Investment
The Yukon government is investing in new infrastructure (via the Resource Gateway Project). It also offers the Yukon Mineral Exploration Program (YMEP), which provides a portion of risk capital to explore and develop mineral projects to an advanced stage.

7. Made in Yukon Process
The Yukon government also tries to foster regulatory certainty to create clarity for companies and investors, by its customized tri-party process.

8. Infrastructure
The jurisdiction has 5,000km of government maintained roads, receives 95% of power from clean hydro, has international and local airports, and has access to three deep-water, ice-free ports.

9. Geopolitical Stability
Canada offers geopolitical stability to start with – but with unprecedented cooperation between the territorial government and First Nations, the Yukon is arguably a step above the rest of the country.

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Uranium

Charted: Global Uranium Reserves, by Country

We visualize the distribution of the world’s uranium reserves by country, with 3 countries accounting for more than half of total reserves.

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A cropped chart visualizing the distribution of the global uranium reserves, by country.

Charted: Global Uranium Reserves, by Country

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

There can be a tendency to believe that uranium deposits are scarce from the critical role it plays in generating nuclear energy, along with all the costs and consequences related to the field.

But uranium is actually fairly plentiful: it’s more abundant than gold and silver, for example, and about as present as tin in the Earth’s crust.

We visualize the distribution of the world’s uranium resources by country, as of 2021. Figures come from the World Nuclear Association, last updated on August 2023.

Ranked: Uranium Reserves By Country (2021)

Australia, Kazakhstan, and Canada have the largest shares of available uranium resources—accounting for more than 50% of total global reserves.

But within these three, Australia is the clear standout, with more than 1.7 million tonnes of uranium discovered (28% of the world’s reserves) currently. Its Olympic Dam mine, located about 600 kilometers north of Adelaide, is the the largest single deposit of uranium in the world—and also, interestingly, the fourth largest copper deposit.

Despite this, Australia is only the fourth biggest uranium producer currently, and ranks fifth for all-time uranium production.

CountryShare of Global
Reserves
Uranium Reserves (Tonnes)
🇦🇺 Australia28%1.7M
🇰🇿 Kazakhstan13%815K
🇨🇦 Canada10%589K
🇷🇺 Russia8%481K
🇳🇦 Namibia8%470K
🇿🇦 South Africa5%321K
🇧🇷 Brazil5%311K
🇳🇪 Niger5%277K
🇨🇳 China4%224K
🇲🇳 Mongolia2%145K
🇺🇿 Uzbekistan2%131K
🇺🇦 Ukraine2%107K
🌍 Rest of World9%524K
Total100%6M

Figures are rounded.

Outside the top three, Russia and Namibia both have roughly the same amount of uranium reserves: about 8% each, which works out to roughly 470,000 tonnes.

South Africa, Brazil, and Niger all have 5% each of the world’s total deposits as well.

China completes the top 10, with a 3% share of uranium reserves, or about 224,000 tonnes.

A caveat to this is that current data is based on known uranium reserves that are capable of being mined economically. The total amount of the world’s uranium is not known exactly—and new deposits can be found all the time. In fact the world’s known uranium reserves increased by about 25% in the last decade alone, thanks to better technology that improves exploration efforts.

Meanwhile, not all uranium deposits are equal. For example, in the aforementioned Olympic Dam, uranium is recovered as a byproduct of copper mining occurring at the same site. In South Africa, it emerges as a byproduct during treatment of ores in the gold mining process. Orebodies with high concentrations of two substances can increase margins, as costs can be shared for two different products.

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