Platts - Tuesday, April 15, 2003 

http://www.platts.com

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Washington (Nuclear News Flashes)--14Apr2003

McArthur River mine will be down 4-6 months, Cameco says

Cameco Corp.'s McArthur River uranium mine will be out
of production four to six months and will cost the
company (Cdn)$4- to $5-million in net income for each
month the mine is down, Cameco said today. The company
said that flooding at the mine was greater than assumed
last week and has required an increase in pumping
capacity at the mine to over 1,000 cubic meters/hour.
Water is now estimated to be flowing into the mine at a
rate of about 900 cubic meters/hour, the company said.
Cameco continues to say that, because of existing
inventories and other supply sources, 2003 deliveries of
uranium to customers will not be affected. Investors,
however, are clearly nervous, and Cameco's stock
continued to slide today in active trading. At midday,
the stock was down almost 10% to (Cdn)$30.19 a share on
the Toronto Stock Exchange.

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Washington (Nuclear News Flashes)--14Apr2003

South Texas investigating residue on reactor vessel
bottom

White residue found on the South Texas-1 reactor vessel
bottom head is under investigation, STP Nuclear
Operating Co. spokesman Alan Mikus said today. The
residue, found April 12 during the Westinghouse PWR's
refueling outage, is undergoing chemical analyses to
determine its makeup and origin, Mikus said. A bare
metal visual inspection "identified a potential leak
indication at the head to penetration interface for
bottom mounted instrumentation (BMI) penetrations 1 and
46," an NRC event notification report stated today.
Mikus said there was no deterioration of the vessel
bottom head. "Additional exams are planned to confirm
the likely origin of the residue and to determine the
scope of any repairs," the NRC report added. "There has
been no indication of [reactor coolant system] leakage
observed at the BMI penetrations during previous
operational cycles." 

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