Drag to turn the globe

Mines/Kazakhstan

Inkai mine

Inkai mine, Kazakhstan. Producing, in situ, mining uranium since 1976.

Why Inkai is famous

Inkai is an in-situ recovery uranium operation in Kazakhstan, owned 40 per cent by Cameco and 60 per cent by Kazatomprom. The deposit was found between 1976 and 1978. JV Inkai was registered in 1996 and received its mining licence for Block 1 in 1999. The first half of the main processing plant was commissioned in the fourth quarter of 2008. Output in 2025 was 8.4 million lb of uranium on a 100 per cent basis, with 10.4 million lb planned for 2026. Cameco gives 2045 as the mine life, based on the licence term.1,2,3

Story cards

What kind of deposit

Sandstone-hosted (roll-front) uranium

Inkai today

Where uranium is mined todayMining in Kazakhstan

Where next

Deposit types

An example ofSandstone-hosted (roll-front) uraniumInkai recovers uranium in situ from sandstone, as roll-front deposits are worked.1

Sources

  1. Minerals Yearbook 2020-21, volume III: The Mineral Industry of Kazakhstan US Geological Survey
  2. data/minerals/operations.csv Prospector Trails (internal)
  3. 2025 Annual Information Form Cameco Corporation (SEC exhibit 99.1 to Form 40-F)

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

Keep exploring

Stories with these minerals

History of miningUranium: from silver mine waste to the atomic age1789-2025Lessons from historyFrom discovery to production: the long road to a mine1922-2027Uranium drill-hole columns over the Athabasca Basin on a satellite map of SaskatchewanData storyUnder SaskatchewanDrill holes · SaskatchewanGreen malachite on pink cobaltocalcite, a copper and cobalt specimen from Musonoi near KolweziMining historyCongo's copper and cobaltCopper and cobalt · DR Congo

All mining storiesThe world runs on rockAll mineralsMining by country

Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Malachite on cobaltocalcite, Musonoi by Ji-Elle, CC BY-SA 3.0. Pictures: The laboratories of Marie and Pierre Curie, Paris: room where experiments on uranium ore took place. Photograph, ca. 1900., Unknown (Wellcome Collection) (Public Domain Mark 1.0); Elektrisk malmletning. Undersökningar på Billiton, 1920., Okänd / Europeana (Public Domain Mark 1.0).