The head of ROSATOM commented on the statement of Australian officials regarding the termination of uranium sales to Russia at a meeting with students of the nuclear sector’s core university NRNU MEPHI. “Politicians in Australia have to declare aloud something; everybody is banging the table with fist, they also have to. With this, one has to be too smart to do no actual harm to anybody,” Sergey Kirienko said.

He noted that Russia hadn’t had any plans of buying uranium from Australia. “I will reveal a “dark secret”: we don’t buy uranium at all, we supply uranium,” Kirienko said. The head of ROSATOM noted that the corporation’s projects both in Russia and foreign markets were backed up by uranium for the entire century.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia responded to the statement, saying: “The continued development of the Russian nuclear industry does not depend in any way on those in Canberra who are taking short-sighted political decisions. The only Australian uranium delivery was made to Russia in October 2013. Australian uranium was shipped to Britain after its enrichment.”

The decision of Australian officials to state aloud the termination of uranium supplies to Russia seems funny and senseless because the Russian nuclear industry exports uranium itself and doesn’t need Australian uranium, Dmitry Baranov, a leading expert in the Management Company “Finam Management”, believes.

“First, this is a “future statement” of a kind. In other words, if Russia wants to buy uranium from Australia on some day, it will be refused. Like, even don’t try to ask us,” the expert noted. “Second, and I think it is more realistic, this hedge could have been made in hope to make a show, to attract attention of leaders of Australia’s allying states who came for the G20 Summit,” Baranov said.

“Extremely exotic” explanations of Canberra’s decision are also possible, but they wouldn’t worth considering, according to the expert. For example, this statement could have been made deliberately to try to affect the global uranium market and to attempt to increase an Australia’s share in it. The logic could be like “we don’t supply uranium to the Russians and can supply it to you at a very attractive price. Come on, dear buyers!” However, “the green continent” is unlikely to see a queue of buyers, since uranium is not potatoes and bananas, which one can buy at any time,” Baranov noted.

“Summing up, I can say this statement wouldn’t affect in any way ROSATOM’s operations both domestically and outside. This statement doesn’t pose threats to safe operation of our NPPs, all contractual commitments of ROSATOM regarding deliveries of fuel to overseas NPPs under construction will be fulfilled in full scope and in due time. The Russian, and the world’s as well, nuclear power will continue developing in due course in spite of any, essentially unbacked by anything, statements,” the expert concluded.

Australia’s Ambassador to Russia Paul Myler stated on termination of supplies of the strategic feedstock of nuclear industry ahead of the 9th G20 Summit. [The termination of uranium supplies,] it‘s not the matter of punishing Russia. It‘s a matter who you willing to trade in uranium with. Because you need to be guaranteed, you need to have confidence in your trading partners that they are going to respect all the safeguards, that none of the uranium is going to be used for weapons, proliferation or anything like that. In situation with Russia where we cannot trust Russia to not put military weapons across into eastern Ukraine, how can we trust it with uranium exports? So it‘s not a commercial issue, it‘s an issue of reputation and respect for Russian safeguards and proliferation. That‘s the point, we did have confidence in Russia, and we don‘t have the same confidence now,” he stated.

Technologies vs. sanctions
Meantime, ROSATOM’s largest miner – the Priargunsky Industrial Mining and Chemical Union (PIMCU) – has started preparations to resume mining at two uranium mines, Nos. 2 and 4. Certainly, these activities have nothing to do with the termination of Australian uranium supplies, but they prove that Russia has not only deposits rich with the feedstock but also unique technologies, which make mining of even lean mines cost effective.

Mining operations at Mine No. 2 were temporarily stopped commencing April 1, 2014 due to the drop of uranium prices in the global market and, as a consequences, economic inefficiency. Mine No. 4 was shut down because its resources were mined out by the traditional shaft technique. Currently, PIMCU use the shaft mining at Mines Nos. 1 and 8; it also uses heap leaching of low grade tails.

“Mining operations at Mine No. 4 will be resumed using the underground block leaching technology, which is new for PIMCU. At Mine No. 2 engineering and process measures are in place, which will allow for minimizing the cost,” Sergey Shurygin, the Director General of the company, explains.

At the present time, an underground shaft maintenance team works in Mine No. 2. In December-January the underground railways and equipment will be inspected and prepared; the machinery will be brought in. Mining is planned to resume in February 2015. The PIMCU’s geological unit estimates Mine No. 2’ uranium resources at 11,000 tons.

Residual resources of Mine No. 4 amount to about 6,000 tons of uranium. However, it is not economically efficient to mine those using traditional techniques due to low assays. The project of aftermining using the underground block leaching was developed based on results of research carried out by VNIPIpromtekhnologii (the engineering center of the Uranium Holding ARMZ) jointly with PIMCU. The technology is to acidify ore directly in blocks and then to supply the ready product solution to the surface. Thus, there is no the necessity of delivering ore to the surface and this significantly reduces costs.

The restoration works have started at Level 5 of Mine No. 4. They are complicated by the fact that many old tunnels collapsed and the fall zones have to be by-passed. The work to install roadway supports and lay rails are under way. A combined team has been set up to restore Layer 3 of Mine No. 4, which is to start operating on the coming days. Mining using the underground heap leaching is planned to start in March 2015.