The Cigar Lake Mine is the largest high grade uranium deposit in the world, located in the uranium rich Athabasca Basin of northern Saskatchewan, Canada.
The deposit, discovered in 1981, is second in size of high-grade deposits only to the McArthur River mine. Other deposits, such as Olympic Dam in Australia, contain more uranium, but not at the significant grades of the Saskatchewan deposits. The average grade at Cigar Lake is in excess of 20%, whereas the world average is less than 1%. Full scale construction began in 2005 with production originally planned for 2007, but the mine experienced a catastrophic water inflow in October 2006, which flooded the mine. A second inflow occurred in 2008 during the first attempt at dewatering the mine after sealing the initial inflow. Remediation efforts continued, and re-entry was successfully accomplished in 2010. Production has been delayed several times with the startup dates being announced for 2011, 2013, and 2014.It has been suggested that the 2006 flood was a direct cause of the uranium bubble of 2007, which caused the natural uranium spot price to reach a record high of $137/lb ($300/kgU).On March 13, 2014, ore production began at the Cigar Lake uranium mining operation in northern Saskatchewan. As of this date, the mining system and underground processing circuits are operational and ore is being transported to the McClean Lake mill operated by AREVA Resources Canada Inc. which is located 70 km (43 mi) northeast of the minesite.