NPC, Uranium Corp to form JV to acquire uranium mines abroad

Nuclear Power Corporation (NPC) would soon sign an agreement with Uranium Corporation of India (UCI), both state-run companies, for a joint venture to acquire mining assets abroad to procure uranium.

They're looking at mining assets in Nigeria, Namibia, Mongolia and  Kazakhstan. The JV would also focus on the procurement of uranium from these assets, as well as other sources.

NPC's chairman and managing director, S K Jain, told Business Standard; "UCI has domain knowledge in uranium mining, while NPC has the necessary funds for the proposed investments. NPC will have a majority stake of 74 per cent, while 26 per cent would be held by UCI in the proposed JV. The JV would have a working capital of Rs 1,500 crore and it expects to invest Rs 5,000 crore over the next five years in the acquisition of mining assets in the four shortlisted countries." 

NPC has already formed a JV with NTPC and Indian Oil Corporation for the construction of atomic power plants in the country. NPC,  Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd and Alstom Power have also teamed for supplying turbines for the indigenous 720-Mw Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors.

NPC is involved in increasing nuclear capacity to 63,000 Mw by 2032. UCI, with its headquarters at Jaduguda (Jharkhand), is operating five underground mines, one open-case mine and two ore processing units, also in Jharkhand. Two more underground uranium mines in this region are under construction . In addition, three large uranium mining and processing projects have been planned, two in Andhra Pradesh and one in Meghalaya.

Jain said: "Investment decisions will be based on various stages of mining in the proposed assets. In some mines, a first-level exploration is done, while there will be a few mines where extensive investigation has been done by digging of bore holes. In some mines, uranium reserves are over 5,000 tonnes. There will be some where the JV can put in funds to develop a processing mill to produce yellow cake (a uranium concentrate powder)."

He admitted India's uranium was of low quality and  NPC would have to rely on multiple sources for the operations of the new high-powered reactors.

"For 40,000 Mw of nuclear capacity, the uranium requirement will be 1,600 tonnes per annum. The  plants will run on 95 per cent load factor. The proposed uranium requirement is quite minimal when compared to the huge need of coal for thermal power projects," Jain said.

According to the Department of Atomic Energy's data, the uranium resource in the country is currently estimated at 1,47,898 tonnes. These are spread in Andhra Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Indian mines produce only 271 tonnes a year, and the available resource is of low quality.