Australia Looks to Fill Uranium Export Gap When U.S.-Russian Disarmament Program Ends

Australian uranium exports can be expected to increase as a U.S.-Russian program to make nuclear fuel from retired warheads nears its end, Australian Resources Minister Martin Ferguson said today during a visit to China (see GSN, Nov. 25, 2008).

Ferguson forecast a major increase in uranium sales to China, inparticular, where officials are planning significant growth in nuclear power, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

"The expansion of the nuclear industry here in China opens up new resource opportunities in Australia from the point of view of uranium mining," he said.

Complementing this growing uranium demand is the prospect of decreasing supplies from other sources, Ferguson said.

"Because the secondary sources of old nuclear warheads are now starting to decline in number, hence market opportunities, such as in China, will open up for Australia," he said, referring to the Megatons to Megawatts program in which 500 tons of highly enriched uranium from Russian nuclear warheads is being converted to nuclear fuel in the United States (see GSN, April 22, 2008).

That effort, due to expire in 2013, is now responsible for 10 percent of U.S. electricity generation and has so far eliminated enough uranium to produce more than 14,000 warheads, according to a release from the U.S. contractor USEC.

Ferguson said Australia should pick up the slack in uranium supply.

"We are ... a leading nation in terms of uranium mining. We should be actually mining more than we are at the moment," he said.

Australia began uranium exports to China in November over the objection of some nonproliferation advocates who argued that the saleswould allow Beijing to redirect its domestic uranium supplies to the nation's nuclear-weapon activities. Ferguson said yesterday that Australia was a responsible exporter.

"I just say that in terms of our responsibilities, to mine our uranium with safe hands and guarantee that it's used only for peaceful purposes, I actually think that is a well-founded policy that has served Australia well in the past," he said (Stephen McDonell, Australian Broadcasting Corp. News, April 3).