The lease contract template used for each of the 19 lease tracts and the lease language for the 10-year extensions for the 13 active leases, contains general and specific stipulations resulting from the Programmatic Environmental Assessment that DOE completed with its Finding of No Significant Impact in July 2007. In addition, ongoing discussions with the Bureau of Land Management and state agencies for mining and mine safety, transportation, and wildlife ensure that exploration and mining plans are reviewed and appropriate mitigation is in place prior to environmental impacts and mining activities. Of the 25,000 acres withdrawn from the public domain and under the control of DOE for uranium mining purposes, the 13 active mines have about 300 acres of surface disturbance and the 19 new lease tracts are estimated to have an additional 410 acres of surface disturbance.

Performance bonds built into the DOE lease contracts are established prior to the beginning of mine operations that cover all reclamation activities to close and reclaim the lease tracts at the termination of the leases. These lease contracts provide a base annual royalty, whether mining actually occurs, that will return about $500,000 per year if all 32 lease tracts are leased. In addition, lessees will pay a production royalty on the uranium and vanadium produced on the dry tons of ore received at the mill. These production royalties are established as a bid-percentage of the fair market value of the ore, which in turn is calculated from the quarterly weighted average price of uranium (derived from the long-term and spot market prices for uranium) and the quarterly average price of vanadium. The uranium production averages about 4 pounds of uranium per dry ton of ore and vanadium averages about 24 pounds per dry ton of ore.

The estimated ore reserves on the 32 lease tracts in southwestern Colorado is 13.5 million pounds of uranium, which accounts for less than 2 percent of the nation's known uranium reserves (estimated at almost 900 million pounds). LM manages the DOE Uranium Leasing Program under the authority and in accordance with 10 CFR 760 and in cooperation with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the State of Colorado.

For more information, contact Steve Schiesswohl, Realty Officer, at (720) 377-9683, or e-mail at Steve.Schiesswohl@hq.doe.gov.