RSS
Romania, to open uranium deposit, project estimated at over 400 million lei
Romania will open a new uranium ore deposit located in Grinties Commune, Neamt County (eastern Romania), in the conditions in which the only deposit currently exploited, the one at Crucea (Suceava County, north-eastern Romania), is about to be exhausted, according to a government resolution draft the Economy Ministry initiated.
The total value of the investment stands at 407.331 million lei (about 91.43 million euros), VAT included, out of which 322 million lei are allotted to the construction and assembly works.
The annual average uranium ore exploitation capacity accounts for 124,000 tonnes and the project is planned to be developed in 108 months.
The funding will be secured from own sources of the National Company of Uranium SA Bucharest, from the state budget, through the Economy Ministry - the Department for Energy.
In the substantiation report, the initiators of the project point out that the increasing development of new nuclear power plants worldwide brings to focus the fuel issue, namely the uranium market.
'The fuel source is intrinsically fundamental to the sustainability of any energy system. Thus, by 2020 and afterwards, the available uranium sources will not completely cover the demand and the prices will constantly go up. The specialists' arguments are based on the development plans of new nuclear units (558 in various stages worldwide, namely in construction, planned or recommended). The forecasts referring to the construction of nuclear power plants shows that the uranium demand will increase 4 times over the coming 10 years, up to about 112,000 tonnes of uranium octoxide in 2020. The current uranium sources cannot satisfy such a consumption, a reason for which new resources are needed,' the substantiation report shows.
Romania uses uranium as fuel for the nuclear power plant of Cernavoda (south-eastern Romania), where two reactors are functioning and other two are planned to be built.
'For ensuring the raw material for the production of nuclear fuel necessary to the functioning of the two nuclear power units, as well as to the future functioning of units 3 and 4, two steps must urgently be made: the assumption of opening a new national capacity of production and, respectively, ensuring the necessary legal framework and participating worldwide in uranium ore leasing processes for their exploitation or in the imports of uranium ore or technical concentrates,' the initiators also said.
The National Company of Uranium currently has one deposit under exploitation, the one at Crucea-Botusana, Suceava County, the leasing licence of which expires in April 2015. This deposit is about to become exhausted, the document also points out.