Strata unveils processing plant

New facility completes circle from uranium in the ground to packaged product

SUNDANCE — A little more than a decade after operations began at Strata Energy’s in-situ uranium mine near Oshoto, the company has cut the ribbon on its yellowcake processing facility.

The new facility completes the circle: from uranium in the ground to a sell- able product packaged in barrels.

“It literally sets the stage for us to be self-sufficient,” said David Hofeling, General Manager Operations. “Historically, we sent resin to a third party for final processing and drying and packaging. This plant is fully functional to produce a sellable product.”

Inside the plant, uranium is stripped from the resin, precipitated, dried and packaged, creating the finished product to be delivered to customers.

“Before, we had to go to a third-party intermediary for the final step of sellable product and their capacity was always a restriction,” Hofeling said.

Now under final commissioning, the facility takes uranium, “From in the ground, out the door on a truck to the customer.”

At the moment, the facility has a two million-pound throughput capacity, but the permit allows for three million pounds. This opens new possibilities, allowing Strata to process the resin from other projects as well as its own.

“We’ve got a million-pound flexibility [and] smaller projects that are popping up around this part of Wyoming. If we are able to take third party resin, then the entry point for new producers has been reduced significantly because they don’t have to build a plant and they don’t have to permit the plant,” he said.

“In terms of U.S. and Wyoming supply of uranium, we’ve lowered that entry point, if we choose, for third parties. They’re not going to be huge producers, because we only have so much, but a million-pound producer in in-situ recovery world is pretty substantial. And we hope to get to $2 million in the next couple of years.”

Until now, Strata has shipped to a facility around 80 miles away that was built in the late 1960s. Its own plant will have a lifetime to match the mine itself, which Hofeling said will be at least 20 to 25 years – and that may just scratch the surface of the available resource, which stretches from a few miles north of I-90 up to the Oshoto mine and another five miles beyond.

In the next few years, he said, Strata will mine an estimated five million pounds of resource. The total resource base is just under 60 million pounds.

“When we say we’re just getting started, it’s generational in terms of who’s going to be working here. There’ll be generations, and that’s what we’re setting the foundation for,” he said.

Strata’s in-situ mine is unusual in this region because it uses a low pH solution. One reason for this is age; this deposit is around 100 million years older than the rest of the Powder River Basin.

The cycle for an individual well field is around seven years, during which it is constructed, mined and restored. Three are in operation now, the first of which will enter the reclamation process within a year, while a fourth is under construction and work will begin on a fifth this fall.

As Strata continues to ramp up, Hofeling said, the goal will be to reach a 5000 GPM throughput based on pipe size. The plant is at around 20 to 25% capacity right now in its commissioning phases but, as well fields are added, the capacity will increase accordingly.

This story was published on June 11, 2026. 

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