Uranium 2007 – Resources, Production and Demand presents, in addition to updated resource figures, the results of the most recent review of world uranium market fundamentals and provides a statistical profile of the world uranium industry as of 1 January 2007. First published in 1965, this is the 22nd edition of what has become known as the “Red Book.” It contains official data provided by 40 countries (and one Country Report prepared by the IAEA Secretariat) on uranium exploration, resources, production and reactor-related requirements. Projections of nuclear generating capacity and reactor-related uranium requirements through 2030 are provided as well as a discussion of long-term uranium supply and demand issues.

This chapter summarises the current status of worldwide uranium resources, exploration and production. In addition, production capabilities in reporting countries for the period ending in the year 2030 are presented and discussed.

This chapter summarises the current status and projected growth in world nuclear electricity generating capacity and commercial reactor-related uranium requirements. Relationships between uranium supply and demand are analysed and important developments related to the world uranium market are described. The data for 2007 and beyond are estimates and actual figures could differ.

Uranium exploration began in Algeria in 1969. The Precambrian shield of the Hoggar and its Tassilian sedimentary cover were considered to provide a geological environment favourable for uranium mineralisation. Initial exploration, carried out by means of ground radiometric surveys, found several radioactive anomalies (Timgaouine, Abankor and Tinef). In 1971, an aerial radiometric survey was performed over the entire country, an area of 2 380 000 km2. After evaluation of the data from that survey, several prospecting teams were involved in ground follow-up and in verifying anomalies. This led to the discovery of a large number of promising areas for further uranium exploration: Eglab, Ougarta, and southern Tassili (Tin-Seririne basin) where the Tahaggart deposit was discovered. Follow up of the aerial radiometric survey also led to identification of the Tamart-N-Iblis and Timouzeline sectors as areas for future uranium exploration. At the same time, the search for uranium entered a phase (1973-1981), which focused primarily on evaluation of the deposits already discovered. A second phase (1984-1987) was characterised by a marked slowdown in the search effort; however, investigations of the flanks of the known deposits and in neighbouring regions revealed other potential mineralised areas (e.g. Tesnou zone in the northwest and north Timgaouine). In Tin-Seririne basin (Tassili south of the Hoggar), geological mapping has resulted in characterisation of the distribution of uranium mineral deposits in the Paleozoic sedimentary sequences.

Uranium exploration activities in Argentina began in 1951-1952. The Huemul sandstone deposit was found in 1954, while exploring for red bed copper mineralisation. The Tonco district with the sandstone deposits Don Otto and Los Berthos was discovered by an airborne geophysical survey conducted in 1958. During the late 1950s and the early 1960s, airborne surveys also led to the discovery of the Los Adobes sandstone deposit in Patagonia.

Until 1977, only a few uranium occurrences were known in Belgium. These were mainly connected with black shales of the Upper Visean-Namurian, in the Dinant Basin, and of the Revinian, in the Stavelot Mountains, and also with breccia, in the Visean and Frasnian chalk, in the Visé Mountains.

Systematic prospecting for radioactive minerals began in 1952 by the Brazilian National Research Council. These efforts led to the discovery of the first uranium occurrences at Poços de Caldas (State of Minas Gerais) and Jacobina (State of Bahia). In 1955, a technical co-operation agreement was signed with the United States Government to assess the Brazilian uranium potential. After the creation of the National Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN) a mineral exploration department was organised with the support of the French CEA in 1962.

Manifestations of uranium mineralisation in Bulgaria, in the Buhovo ore deposit (25 km from Sofia) have been known since 1920 and the first exploration activities were conducted in 1935. More serious exploration activities based on technological research and economical calculations took place between 1938 and 1939, with the co-operation of German specialists. The first 300 tonnes of uranium ore were mined in 1939.

Uranium exploration in Canada began in 1942, with the focus of activity first at Great Bear Lake, Northwest Territories where pitchblende ore had been mined since the 1930s. In the post war period, exploration in the Athabasca Basin of northern Saskatchewan and in the Elliot Lake region of Ontario led to the development of additional mines. In the late 1960s exploration returned to the Athabasca Basin where large high-grade deposits were discovered and later developed. The last of the Elliot Lake mines closed in the 1990s and Saskatchewan is now the sole producer of uranium.

Chile reports known conventional resources totalling 1 930 tU, including 1 034 tU RAR and 896 tU Inferred (no costs are assigned to either category). The 1 January 2007, estimate includes 68 tU mainly in the low grade (0.02% U) surficial type occurrences Salar Grande and Quillagua, 1 763 tU in Upper Cretaceous metasomatic occurrences including mainly the Estacion Romero and Prospecto Cerro Carmen (REE) occurrences whose grades range between 0.03 and 0.20% U, and 100 tU in the Cenozoic volcanogenic deposit of El Laco, which grade ranges between 0.01 and 0.18% U.

Before the 1990s, China’s uranium resource exploration activities were mainly carried out on hydrothermal related granite type and volcanic type uranium deposits in Jiangxi, Hunan, Guangdong Provinces and Guangxi Autonomous Region in southern China. With decades of exploration, the Bureau of Geology (BOG), China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) has been successful in discovering some significant uranium deposits such as the Xiangshan, Xiazhuang ore-fields and Chengxian deposit in the southern China fold belt. These deposits mainly occur in intermediate to acid magmatic rocks such as granitoid and volcanic rocks.

Until 1962 there had never been any exploration specifically for uranium in Colombia; only some isolated data from some very preliminary studies. After that date the former Institute for Nuclear Affairs (Instituto de Asuntos Nucleares, IAN) began to take an interest and carried out field studies. Companies and agencies, such as Agip, Enusa, Total, Minatome, Cogema, IAEA and Coluranio surveyed part of the Andes and some sectors of the Guyana shield. The result of this phase was that some anomalies were discovered in sites such as Santa Elena (Norte de Santander Department), Berlín (Caldas Department), Zapatota, California, San Celestino and Contratación (Santander Department).

Following its start in 1946, uranium exploration in Czechoslovakia grew rapidly and developed into a large-scale programme in support of the country’s uranium mining industry. A systematic exploration programme including geological, geophysical and geochemical surveys and related research was carried out to assess the uranium potential of the entire country. Areas with identified potential were explored in detail using drilling and underground methods.

In the framework of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, the Government of Egypt had plans, beginning in the 1980s, to implement a nuclear power plant for electric power generation. Other R&D plans also considered the use of nuclear energy for water desalination. All of these plans implied the implementation of uranium exploration programmes. These programmes were undertaken by the Egyptian Nuclear Materials Authority (NMA), which is the government body responsible for nuclear raw materials in the country. In the early phases, these programmes included training NMA teams in exploration and associated relevant tasks. A number of Technical Co-operation (TC) projects and expert missions were executed in collaboration with the IAEA for this purpose.

Uranium exploration was carried out in Finland from 1955 to 1989, first by several organisations but from the late-1970s mainly by the Geological Survey. Since their beginning in the early-1970s, the regional aero-geophysical and geochemical mapping programmes have played an important role in uranium exploration.

Uranium exploration in France began in 1946, focusing on already known uranium ore deposits and the few mineralisation occurrences discovered during radium exploration. In 1948, exploration work led to the discovery of the La Crouzille deposit, formerly of major importance. By 1955, deposits had been identified in the granite areas of Limousin, Forez, Vendée and Morvan.

Uranium exploration and mining was undertaken from 1946 to 1953 by the Soviet stock company, SAG Wismut. These activities were centred around old mining locations of silver, cobalt, nickel and other metals in the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) and in Vogtland, Saxony, where uranium had first been discovered in 1789. The mining of uranium first began at the cobalt and bismuth mines near Schneeberg and Oberschlema (a former famous radium spa). During this early period more than 100 000 people were engaged in exploration and mining activities. The rich uraninite and pitchblende ore from the vein deposits was hand-picked and shipped to the USSR for further processing. Lower grade ore was treated locally in small processing plants. In 1950, the central mill at Crossen near Zwickau, Saxony was brought into operation.

The first reconnaissance for uranium started in 1952 when, with Soviet participation, material from Hungarian coal deposits was checked for its radioactivity. The results of this work led in 1953 to a geophysical exploration programme (airborne and surface radiometry) over the western part of the Mecsek Mountains. The discovery of the Mecsek deposit was made in 1954 and further work was aimed at the evaluation of the deposit and its development. The first shafts were placed in 1955 and 1956 for the mining plants I and II. In 1956, the Soviet-Hungarian uranium joint venture was dissolved and the project became the sole responsibility of the Hungarian State.

The history of uranium exploration in India dates from 1949. Until the mid-1970s, uranium exploration was mainly confined to known uranium provinces in the Singhbhum, Jharkhand and Umra-Udaisagar belt in Rajasthan where vein-type mineralisation was already known. One deposit at Jaduguda in Singhbhum, Jharkhand has been exploited since 1967 and many other deposits in nearby areas were earmarked for future exploitation. Subsequently, investigations were expanded to other geologically favourable areas, based on conceptual models and an integrated exploration approach.

In 1935, the first occurrence of radioactive minerals was detected in the Anarak mining region. In 1959 and 1960, through co-operation between the Geologic Survey of Iran (GSI) and a French company, preliminary studies were carried out in Anarak and Khorassan of central Iran and Azarbaijan regions in order to evaluate the uranium mineralisation potential of these areas.

Domestic uranium exploration has been carried out by the Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (PNC) and its predecessor since 1956. About 6 600 tU of uranium resources have been detected in Japan. Domestic uranium exploration activities in Japan were terminated in 1988. Overseas uranium exploration began in 1966. Exploration activities were carried out mainly in Canada and Australia, and in other countries such as the United States, Niger, China and Zimbabwe.

In 1980 an airborne spectrometric survey covering the entire country was completed. By 1988 ground based radiometric surveys of anomalies identified in the airborne survey were completed. During the 1988-1990 period, the Precambrian basement and Ordovician sandstone target areas were evaluated using geological, geochemical and radiometric mapping and/or surveys.

Uranium exploration in Kazakhstan started in 1948 at the Kurdai deposit situated south of Kazakhstan, when the now independent Republic was part of the USSR. Subsequent exploration activities can be divided into distinct stages, based on target areas and exploration concepts applied.

The Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO), as part of its exploration programme, participated in a number of projects abroad, such as, the Crow Butte project in Nebraska, USA and the Cigar Lake and Dawn Lake projects in Saskatchewan, Canada. KEPCO, however, suspended its participation in these projects and sold its shares in 1999. The Dae Woo Corporation has participated in the Baker Lake project in Canada since 1983.

Past exploration programmes have been unsuccessful in discovering uranium in Lithuania. Therefore, Lithuania has neither uranium resources nor production and is not currently undertaking any uranium exploration.

The Kayelekera uranium project is located in the Karonga district of the northern region of Malawi, about 600 km by road from the capital city of Lilongwe. Uranium production, by open-pit mining, with an annual production of 1 270 tU, is expected to start in 2009 and continue for some seven to nine years.

In 1928, Captain G. Peter Louw discovered uranium mineralisation in the vicinity of the Rossing Mountains in the Namib Desert. Over many years he tried to promote the prospect, but it was not until the late 1950s that Anglo-American Corporation of South Africa prospected the area by drilling and by some underground exploration. Due to erratic uranium values and poor economic prospects for uranium, the Anglo-American Corporation abandoned the search.

Uranium exploration in the Arlit area began in 1956 and was conducted by the Commissariat à l’énergie atomique (CEA), later followed by COGEMA. Discovery of mineralised areas eventually led to the mining of the Arlette, Artois and Ariege deposits by the Société des Mines de l’Air (Somaïr), and the Akouta and Akola deposits by the Société des Mines d’Akouta (Cominak). Exploration along the northwest extension of the Arlette flexure fault resulted in the discovery of the Taza deposit. The Société Minière de Tassa N’Taghalgue (STT) was organised to own the deposit but assigned part of its mining rights to Somaïr in 1986.

The Macusani uraniferous district (Puno Department) is located in southeastern Peru. The uraniferous mineralisation is found in acid volcanic rock from the Mio-Pliocene era, which fills the Macusani tectonic depression that overlies Palaeozoic era rocks.

Prospecting for uranium accumulations in Poland began in 1948. Then the Industrial Plant in Kowary (Lower-Silesian Voivodeship) was established, which was involved in exploitation and processing of uranium deposits.

The first uranium-radium deposits in Portugal were found in 1907 and the first mining concession (Rosmaneira) was granted in 1909, although it was Urgeiriça that became the first producing mine in 1913. Radium at Urgeiriça was mined until 1944 (it is estimated that the production of 50 g of radium resulted in a loss of 500 tU) and uranium was mined between 1944 and 1951. Between 1945 and 1962 a foreign privately owned enterprise, Companhia Portuguesa de Radium (CPR) extracted and processed ores from Urgeiriça and other mines in the Beira Alta (Central Portugal) region. CPR also carried out radiometric surveys, detailed geological mapping, trenching and extensive core drilling with gamma ray logging. All the targets were located in the Beiras granitic formations of Hercynian age.

Since the beginning of uranium exploration in 1944, more than 100 uranium deposits have been discovered within 14 districts in the Russian Federation. These deposits can be classified into three major groups: the Streltsovstk district, which includes 19 volcanic caldera-related deposits where the mining of some deposits is ongoing, the Transural and Vitim districts where sandstone basal-channel type deposits are developed for uranium production by ISL mining and other uranium bearing districts containing numerous deposits of vein, volcanic and metasomatite types higher cost uranium resources that are planned to be mined.

Uranium exploration was performed within the Slovak Republic since 1950s in different regions. Based on the results of the evaluation, it was concluded at that time that the Slovak Republic had no uranium resources of economic interest. No uranium exploration occurred between 1990 and 2005.

Exploration of the Zirovski Vrh area began in 1961. In 1968, the P-10 tunnel was developed giving access to the ore body. Mining began at Zirovski Vrh in 1982 and uranium concentrate production (as yellow cake) began in 1985.

The world-wide search for uranium resources in the early 1940s resulted in the commencement of uranium exploration in South Africa during 1944. Attention at the time was focused on the occurrence of uranium in the gold bearing quartz-pebble conglomerates of the Witwatersrand Supergroup. Exploration for uranium in the Witwatersrand Basin was always a consequence of gold exploration until the oil crisis emerged in 1973. With the price of uranium increasing more than five times in a short space of time, uranium exploration activities intensified leading to the establishment of South Africa’s first primary uranium producer at Beisa Mine in 1981.

Uranium exploration started in 1951 and was carried out by the Junta de Energía Nuclear (JEN). Initial targets were the Hercynian granites of western Spain. In 1957 and 1958, the first occurrences in Precambrian-Cambrian schists were discovered, including the Fe deposit, located in the province of Salamanca. In 1965, exploration in sedimentary rocks started and the Mazarete deposit in Guadalajara province was discovered. Exploration activities by the Empresa Nacional del Uranio, S.A. (ENUSA) ended in 1992. Joint venture exploration between ENUSA and other companies continued until the end of 1994. During this period, most of the Spanish territory had been surveyed using a variety of exploration methods, adapted to different stages. An ample coverage of airborne and ground radiometrics of the most interesting areas has been achieved.

Uranium exploration was carried out during the period 1950-1985. However, at the end of 1985, exploration activities were stopped due to availability of uranium at low prices on the world market. There are four main uranium provinces in Sweden: The first is in the Upper Cambrian and Lower Ordovician sediments in southern Sweden and along the border of the Caledonian mountain range in central Sweden. The uranium occurrences are stratiform, in black (alumn) shales. Billigen (Vastergotland), where the Ranstad deposits is located, covers an area of more than 500 km2.

In June 1979, the federal government decided to encourage uranium exploration by awarding a grant of CHF 1.5 million for the period 1980-1984. During 1980 and 1981 about 1 000 m of galleries were excavated for prospecting by a private company in the Hercynian Massif of Aiguilles Rouges and the surrounding gneisses. The limited work so far has not allowed a clear picture of the factors controlling the mineralisation, which is of low grade and disseminated in an area which is geologically very complex.

On 3 November 2007, there will have been 60 years since the foundation of Kirovgeology – an organisation which now conducts all surveys and exploration for uranium in Ukraine. But prospecting for uranium in Ukraine began in 1944 as a revision of works performed by wells drilled before and mine workings produced in the North Krivoy Rog ore area. The Pervomayskoye and Zheltorechenskoye uranium deposits, which were discovered as a result of these works, were mined out in 1967 and 1989 respectively.

Some uranium mining occurred in Cornwall, as a sideline to other mineral mining, especially tin, in the late 1800s. Systematic exploration occurred in the periods 1945-1951, 1957-1960, and 1968-1982, but no significant uranium reserves were located.

From 1947 through 1970, the United States (US) Government fostered a domestic private-sector uranium exploration and production industry to procure uranium for military uses and to promote research and development into peaceful atomic energy applications. By late 1957, the number of new deposits being brought into production by private industry and production capability had increased sufficiently to meet projected requirements, and Federal exploration programmes were ended. The government has continued to monitor private-industry exploration and development activities to meet Federal informational needs.

Uranium exploration in selected areas of Vietnam began in 1955. Since 1978, a systematic regional exploration programme has been underway throughout the entire country. About 330 000 km2, equivalent to almost 100% of the country, have been surveyed at the 1:200 000 scale using surface radiometric methods combined with geological observations. About 103 000 km2 (31% of the country) have been explored at the 1:50 000 scale. Nearly 80 000 km2, or 24% of the country, has been covered by an airborne radiometric/magnetic survey at the 1:25 000 and 1:50 000 scales. Selected occurrences and anomalies have been investigated in more detail by 75 800 m of drilling and by underground exploration workings.