Russia to Control Half of U.S. Uranium

We’ve been following this developing deal between Canada’s Uranium-One and the Rosatom subsidiary ARMZ, but it’s only this week that it looks like the transaction is wrapping up with U.S. approval from CIFIUS.  The Financial Times has the story, including a comment that “the deal is the latest sign of how, after a three-decade hiatus in new reactor projects, the US has lost control of key parts of the nuclear supply chain.”

ARMZ, the uranium mining division of Russia’s state-owned Rosatom nuclear power group, has taken a 51 per cent stake in Toronto-listed Uranium One which owns mines in Wyoming.

The two companies aim to bring the mines into production next year, and plan to increase output to 2m-4m pounds of uranium oxide per year by 2015. Total US uranium output will be about 4m pounds this year.

Vadim Zhivov, ARMZ’s director-general, said he understood concern about the deal. But he added: “It is 20 years since the Cold War, and no single country will be able to solve the energy challenges of the world.” (…)

Nevertheless, Mr Zhivov acknowledged the company had a “hard road ahead” to prove to Uranium One shareholders that “a Russian state-owned company can . . . play by the rules of the modern developed world.“