Revenues for the quarter were down 31.6% year on year at $US101.7 million ($A11.2 million) on the sale of 2.8 million pounds of uranium oxide.

It represents roughly the same sales volume compared to a year ago but at a 23.8% lower price of $36.67 per pound of uranium oxide.

Group production, however, showed progress, with record combined output from the Langer Heinrich mine in Namibia and the Kayelekera mine in Malawi.

Combined production from the two operations was 2.2Mlb of uranium oxide for the quarter, up marginally from the same period a year ago and demonstrating stable operation near or above budget.

This performance brought production for 2013 to 8.4Mlb of uranium oxide, representing a 5% increase over the previous year.

Individually, Langer Heinrich recorded 1.4Mlb of uranium oxide production for the quarter, with overall recovery stable at 87.8% and 4% lower feed grades of 771 parts per million.



Kayelekera, meanwhile, produced 777,000lb of uranium oxide for the quarter, including a record December of 280,000lb.

Safety was a difficult issue for the company over the period, with an electrical incident sending three workers to hospital in early October.

The company confirmed that the most seriously injured worker died on October 29.

Two lost time injuries were recorded as a result of the incident.

Looking forward, Paladin cited a number of uranium analysts, including Cantor Fitzgerald and Cormark Securities, in underscoring a looming market imbalance for uranium and affirming its view that a price of at least $70/lb would be necessary to support new supply.

Earlier this week Paladin said it would not pursue development of its Manyingee project in Western Australia due to the low uranium price.

It followed an update of the project’s resource, comprising an indicated component of 8.4 million tonnes at 850ppm uranium for 15.7Mlb (7127 tonnes) of uranium oxide and an inferred component of 5.41Mt at 850ppm uranium oxide for 10.17Mlb (4613t) of uranium oxide.

It compares to a previous indicated resource of 17.8Mlb and an inferred resource of 6.2Mlb.

Shares in Paladin were last trading 7.8% higher at A48.5c.