Seventh US Uranium Project Greenlit for Rapid Review Under Trump Executive Order

A South Dakota development is the seventh new or revitalized uranium mining project approved for accelerated permitting since President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March calling for fast-tracking domestic mineral production.

Dallas-based enCore Energy Corp announced on Sept. 2 that the U.S. Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council has greenlit its 10,580-acre Dewey Burdock In-Situ Recovery Uranium Project in Custer and Fall River counties for rapid review.

EnCore Executive Chairman William Sheriff in a statement said that Burdock is the first critical mineral extraction in South Dakota selected for fast-tracking from among 30 mining projects approved for accelerated review since Trump declared a National Energy Emergency on Jan. 20.

Burdock is an advanced-stage project licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission since 2014. It will recover uranium from sandstone by dissolving uranium minerals “in place” and pumping a uranium-bearing solution into a processing plant for recovery.

“The Permitting Council is delivering on the president’s Executive Order on domestic mining, and we look forward to working with enCore Energy Corp to get this project to the permitting finish line,” Emily Domenech, the executive director of the council, said in an Aug. 28 statement.

After Trump’s executive order in March, he followed up with four more on May 23 aimed at quadrupling the nation’s nuclear energy capacity by 2050.

In those May actions, the president called for adding 10 new nuclear reactors to the 94 already in operation at 54 nuclear power plants across 28 states, by 2030.

None of this is possible without mining and processing uranium—an industry dominated for decades by Russia and Kazakhstan.

More Ore Needed

A half century ago, the United States was the world’s largest uranium producer. In 1980, domestic operators produced 44 million pounds annually, about 90 percent of the uranium used by 251 nuclear power plants, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

By the mid-1990s, however, U.S. nuclear power plants were increasingly importing less expensive low-enriched uranium largely from Russia and Kazakhstan.

By 2021, only 5 percent of uranium used by U.S power plants was produced domestically, with Canada (27 percent), Kazakhstan (25 percent), Russia (12 percent), Uzbekistan (11 percent), and Australia (9 percent) as the leading suppliers.

Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine underlined the urgency to end reliance on uranium from Russia, spurring Congress to adopt The Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act in April 2023, followed by the June 2023 adoption of The ADVANCE Act, and significant boosts to the 2020-created U.S. Uranium Reserve.

Those measures are paying off, the U.S. Energy Information Administration documented on Aug. 5 in its annual Domestic Uranium Production Report.

U.S. mines produced 677,000 pounds of triuranium octoxide in 2024, otherwise known as “yellowcake,” up from 50,000 pounds in 2023.

This is still far below the 44 million pounds U.S. mines produced in 1980 and the 50 million pounds consumed annually by domestic nuclear reactors.

From the Ground Out

Other fast-tracked uranium projects include:

Laramide Resources Crownpoint-Churchrock projects in McKinley County, and La Jara Mesa project in Cibola County, New Mexico. The two project areas are separated by 22 miles but are covered under the same permit. Both received Fast-41 designations in May.

Crownpoint is a 32-year expansion 12 miles from Gallup spanning 4,160 acres. La Jara has been licensed since 2008 as an underground mine for up to 20 years in Cibola National Forest.

New Mexico-based Grants Energy will use fracking and in-situ recovery technologies in its Grants Precision project 20 miles from the town of Grants.

Energy Fuels of Denver projects it can produce 2.7 million pounds of uranium annually for nine years at its Roca Honda Project, a conventional mine.

Anfield Energy’s Velvet-Wood project in Utah was the first to be approved for fast tracking on May 27 and its accelerated review cut the timeline from years to 11 days. Canada-based Anfield’s production model processes ore from its underground mine at its Shootaring Canyon uranium mill—one of only three in the United States—about 19 miles from Monticello, Utah.

The Sweetwater Project of Uranium Energy Corp. (UEC) in Wyoming’s Red Desert has a licensed capacity of 4.1 million pounds of yellowcake a year and will process both conventional ore and in-situ recovery resin, making it the nation’s largest “dual” operation, at its Sweetwater processing plant.

It was designated for fast-track permitting on Aug. 5.

“Sweetwater’s selection under FAST-41 reinforces its national importance as a key project to achieve the United States’ goals of establishing reliable infrastructure, supporting nuclear fuel independence,” UEC President and CEO Amir Adnani said in a statement.

In August 2025, UEC announced the startup of uranium production at Christensen Ranch, also in Wyoming.

Christensen Ranch uranium is being processed at UEC’s Irigaray Plant as part of the company’s Willow Creek uranium recovery project in the Powder River Basin.

On Sept. 2, UEC announced the launch of United States Uranium Refining & Conversion Corp., a subsidiary that will develop “a new state-of-the-art American uranium refining and conversion facility,” making it “the only vertically integrated U.S. company with uranium mining, processing, refining, and conversion capabilities.”

UEC Chair and former U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham said in the statement that vertical integration helps address the problem of relying on outside sources to “supply and process the critical materials essential to … national and economic security.”