Summit & PDN, page-391

I can answer the why? bit. Almost all Uranium miners/processors have been looking for ways to significantly cut mining and production costs. They have access to some of the best brains in the respective industries of chemical/mining/mechanical engineering, and even probably physicists. This has been done simply to survive the down-turn in the ore price. Those that weren't viable or couldn't cut costs are gone.

I read somewhere there used to be over 100 so-called Uranium miners at one point, and we're down to about 12 that actually have any promise / resources left.