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TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Quebec-based Strateco Resources has booked a $87-million impairment charge during the first three months of the year, as its flagship Matoush uranium project lays in limbo following the province’s March moratorium on uranium exploration and mining.
This follows the decision by Quebec Environment Minister Yves-François Blanchet not to issue the certificate of authorisation for the Matoush uranium project, located east of James Bay in a First Nation reserve, until the relevant public hearings committee, the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement, better known as BAPE, had submitted its report on the province’s uranium industry.
As at December 31, Boucherville-based Strateco had invested more than $123-million in moving the Matoush project up the value curve.
Strateco charged it was obliged to impair its Quebec uranium properties, deferred exploration and evaluation expenditures and fixed assets associated with the project, owing to its inability to proceed with the underground exploration programme, the absence of significant exploration and evaluation expenditures planned for the year and the overall uncertainty surrounding Quebec’s uranium industry.
The impairments have generated a reversal of deferred income tax liabilities for the three-month period ending March 31, and a total deferred income tax recovery of $11-million for the same period.
The net loss for the three months was $77-million.
In April, Strateco started a series of legal actions against the province’s environmental agency to assert its uranium exploration rights.
Strateco said following the moratorium on the issuance of permits for uranium projects, announced late in March by Minister Blanchet, it had served the Quebec Environment Ministry with a notice for damages and interest, set at an initial amount of $16-million.
This sum represented the loss in the company’s market capitalisation since the Minister’s announcement.
Strateco held Blanchet liable for damages caused by his “misconduct” up until this time, and said that it had given instructions that legal proceedings to be instituted to obtain compensatory and punitive damages.
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