The History Of Potash And Uranium In Saskatchewan

Potash and Uranium Essay

For many years, potash and uranium have been some of the most major minerals mined in Saskatchewan. Large deposits of both minerals are found in the province, the reason why Saskatchewan produces on average 85% of the world’s uranium, and 90% of the world’s potash.

First off, potash is found all over Saskatchewan. One of the most dominant companies here is The PotashCorp of Saskatchewan. It has mines located in Allan, Patience Lake, Lanigan, as well as Rocanville that all use a different variety of processing the potash that is sent to different warehouses all over the province.

The most common type of processing technique is floatation. Floatation starts with crushing the potash, then scrubbing, sizing and fine

People from all over the world use potash in their soil, and it is most commonly exported from our very own Saskatchewan. In fact, Saskatchewan is the largest potash producer in the world, exporting a total of $6.7 billion worth of potash to countries such as the US, China, Brazil, and India.

The potash industry impacts Saskatchewan with its growing demand throughout the world. Global demands are expected to grow due to an increasing demand for food and biofuels. In order to make sure the needs are taken care of, they are increasing their size with production facilities. These huge investments will not only create new economic opportunities, as well as the creation of more jobs. PotashCorp already employs 2 520 people, and is hoping to expand, creating more job opportunities in the future.

Next mineral I am going to write about is Uranium. Uranium can be found in Northern Saskatchewan, in cities such as Uranium City and Buffalo Narrows. Operations such as Midwest, McLean Lake, and Rabbit Lake all mine for Uranium. Uranium is mined multiple different ways. One way in particular is open pit mining, which is a surface mining technique of taking rocks and minerals such as uranium out of the