Russia divulges nuclear energy plans for Africa

State-owned Rosatom has announced plans to extract yellowcake from Tanzania and mine uranium in Namibia.

Rosatom, the world’s largest producer of nuclear energy, said on Wednesday that it would begin uranium mining in Namibia in 2029.

The project will require up to $500 million in investment, and yearly production of uranium is projected to be 3,000 tonnes.

The business stated, “With a mining duration of more than 25 years, we anticipate to finish the exploration work in 2026 and begin uranium mining in 2029.

Headspring Investments, a subsidiary of Uranium One Group, a global uranium mining company owned by Rosatom, will conduct the exploration of uranium deposits in Namibia.

The corporation also disclosed the recent discovery of a sizable deposit in the southwest African nation, which is home to 7% of the world’s uranium reserves.

According to Rosatom, the project will increase Namibia’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 1–2%, generate new jobs in the area, and directly employ up to 600 people.

Additionally, the company is scheduled to begin testing uranium ore mining and processing in Tanzania in 2023–2025.

Rosatom said it was working on the Mkuju River project in Tanzania with the Nyota deposit, one of the biggest in the world with a resource reserve of 152 million tonnes of ore.

Rosatom claims that at the pilot stage, it will extract 5 tonnes of yellowcake, a powdered form of uranium concentrate, with a capacity of 3,000 tonnes annually.

In 2022, Uranium One Group retrieved almost 4,500 tonnes of the nearly 7,000 tonnes of uranium that Rosatom mined.