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UIC Nuclear Issues Briefing Paper 1

June 2006

 

• Uranium is part of Australia’s mining heritage, though only three mines are currently operating. Two more are proposed.
• Australia’s uranium reserves are the world’s largest, with 30% of the total. Production and exports exceed 11,000 tonnes of uranium oxide (9300 tU) per year.
• Australia’s uranium is used solely for electricity. It is supplied under arrangements which ensure that none finds its way into nuclear weapons.
• In the five years to mid 2005 Australia exported 46,600 tonnes of uranium oxide concentrate (39,500 tU) with a value of over A$2.1 billion to eleven countries around the world.

In the 1930s ores were mined at Radium Hill and Mount Painter in SA to recover radium for medical purposes. As a result a few hundred kilograms of uranium were also produced.

Uranium ores as such were mined and treated in Australia from the 1950s until 1971. Radium Hill, SA, Rum Jungle, NT, and Mary Kathleen, Queensland, were the largest producers of uranium (as yellowcake). Production ceased either when ore reserves were exhausted or contracts were filled. Sales were to supply material primarily intended for USA and UK weapons programs at that time. However, much of it was used for electricity production.

The development of civil nuclear power stimulated a second wave of exploration activity in the late 1960s.

Mary Kathleen began recommissioning its mine and mill in 1974. Other developments were deferred pending the findings of the Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, and its decision in the light of these. Mary Kathleen recommenced production in 1976.

The Commonwealth Government announced in 1977 that new uranium mining was to proceed, commencing with the Ranger project in the Northern Territory. This mine opened in 1981.

In 1979, Queensland Mines opened Nabarlek in the same region of Northern Territory. The orebody was mined out in one dry season and the ore stockpiled for treatment from 1980. The mine site is now rehabilitated.

At the end of 1982 the Mary Kathleen mine was depleted and finally closed down.

A brief history of Australian uranium mining is appended

 

The Mines

Ranger opened in 1981 at a production rate of approximately 3300 tonnes per year of uranium oxide and has since been expanded to 5500 t/yr capacity. Sales are to Japan, South Korea, France, Spain, Sweden, UK, Canada & USA. Ranger is owned by Energy Resources of Australia Ltd (ERA), now a subsidiary of Rio Tinto.

During 1988 the Olympic Dam project, then a joint venture of Western Mining Corporation and BP Minerals, commenced operations. This is a large underground mine in central South Australia, producing copper, gold and uranium. Annual production capacity for uranium oxide has been expanded from 1800 to 4600 tonnes, with sales to USA, Canada, Sweden, UK, Belgium, France, Finland, South Korea and Japan. It is now owned by BHP Billiton, following its 2005 takeover of WMC Resources.

Both Ranger and the now-closed and rehhabilitated Nabarlek mines are on aboriginal land in the Alligator Rivers region of the Northern Territory, close to the Kakadu National Park (in fact the Ranger leases are surrounded by the National Park). Ranger is served by the township of Jabiru, constructed largely for that purpose. During the operation of Nabarlek mine, employees were based in Darwin and commuted by air.

Aboriginal people receive royalties of 4.25% on sales of uranium from Northern Territory mines. The total received simply from Ranger is now over $207 million, and $14 million came from Nabarlek.

The Olympic Dam mine is on formerly pastoral land in the middle of South Australia. A town to accommodate 3500 people was built at Roxby Downs to service the mine.

Following the 1996 change in government policy, three other projects were brought forward:

• Jabiluka, NT
• Honeymoon, SA
• Beverley, SA

Jabiluka will be an extension of the Ranger operation but awaits Aboriginal approval for development. The last two are small in situ leach operations.

Beverley started operation late in 2000. It is Australia’s first in situ leach (ISL) mine and is licensed to produce 1180 t/yr U₃O₈ (1000 tU), and reached this level in 2004.

Honeymoon received government approval to proceed with ISL mine development in November 2001, but is reassessing ore reserves and is not yet operational.

WMC Resources committed A$ 90 million over two years to assess the potential for doubling the size of Olympic Dam and in particular to take the resource categorisation of the southern orebody through to proven reserves and thus demonstrate the viability of a much expanded operation – up to 15,000 t/yr U₃O₈. The capital cost involved would be A$5 billion. The study will include 72 km of drilling on the southern deposit and assessing mining options including possibly a massive open pit to access the orebody which starts 350 metres down. Proved and probable reserves are some 376,000 t U₃O₈ (319,000 tU), the total resource being some 1.6 million tonnes (1.35 MtU), over one third of the world’s known total. Present production capacity is 4500 t/yr U₃O₈ with 235,000 t copper.

Australian Uranium Production and Exports

		1997-8	1998-9	1999-00	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
Production	tonnes U3O8	5797	6396	8199	9645	7717	9149	9533	10964
Exports	tonnes U3O8	6415	5989	8023	9723	7366	9592	9099	11215
Exports	A $ million, FOB	288	288	367	497	361	427	364	475

For tU divide by 1.1793.

Production and export by calendar year:

	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
production (tonnes U3O8)	5866	6473	5799	7055	8937	9119	8083	8930	10592	11222
production (tonnes U)	4974	5489	4917	5982	7578	7733	6854	7572	8982	9519
exports (tonnes U3O8)	5424	6916	5553	7578	8757	9239	7637	9612	9648	12360
exports (tonnes U)	4599	5864	4709	6426	7426	7834	6476	8151	8181	10481
export value* ($A/kg U3O8)	45.75	41.49	48.57	46.06	48.65	50.09	47.57	41.41	42.58	46.36
export value* (US$/lb U3O8)	16.81	13.96	13.84	13.48	12.85	11.78	11.73	12.24	14.22	16.03

* $A from declared net FOB estimates, $US calculated from this.

URANIUM EXPORTS FROM AUSTRALIA

Australian exports over the last three years have averaged almost 10,000 t/yr U₃O₈, providing about 22% of world uranium supply from mines. Uranium comprises about 40% of the country’s energy exports (4600 PJ in 2004-05) in thermal terms.

 

Australia’s uranium is sold strictly for electrical power generation only, and safeguards are in place to ensure this. Australia is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a non-nuclear weapons state. Its safeguards agreement under the NPT came into force in 1974 and it was the first country in the world to bring into force the Additional Protocol in relation to this – in 1997.

In the five years to mid 2005 Australia exported 46,600 tonnes of uranium oxide concentrate (39,500 tU) with a value of over A$ 2.1 billion. The nations which currently purchase Australia’s uranium are set out below. All have a large commitment to nuclear power:

The USA generates around 30% of the world’s nuclear power. Much of its uranium comes from Canada, but Australia is a major source. Japan and South Korea however are important customers due to their increasing dependence on nuclear.

Customer countries’ contracted imports of Australian uranium oxide concentrate may be summarised as follows, (but see also the reactor table):

USA: c 4100 tonnes per year – 103 reactors (supplying 20% of electricity).

Japan: c 2700 tonnes per year – 55 reactors (supplying 30% of electricity)

South Korea: c 1000 tonnes per year – 20 reactors (40% of electricity)

EU: about 3200 tonnes per year, including:
Spain: 9 reactors (24% of electricity)
France: 59 reactors (77% of electricity)
UK: 23 reactors (20% of electricity)
Sweden: 10 reactors (50% of electricity)
Germany: 17 nuclear reactors (30% of electricity)
Belgium: 7 reactors (55% of electricity)
Finland: 4 reactors (27% of electricity)

Australia is a preferred uranium supplier to world, especially East Asian, markets. It could readily increase its share of the world market because of its low cost reserves and its political and economic stability.

Australia has 38% of the world’s lowest-cost uranium resources (under US$ 40/kg). Nearly all of Australia’s 702,000 tonnes of Reasonably Assured Resources of uranium alone to US$ 80/kg U (US$ 30/lb U₃O₈) are in the under US$ 40/kg U category.

This figure compares with Kazakhstan (384,000 tU), Canada (334,000 tonnes), South Africa (232,000 tonnes) and Namibia (139,000 tonnes). The following table shows these plus Inferred Resources.

 

Known Recoverable Resources* of Uranium

	tonnes U	percentage of world
Australia	1,074,000	30%
Kazakhstan	622,000	17%
Canada	439,000	12%
South Africa	298,000	8%
Namibia	213,000	6%
Russian Fed.	158,000	4%
Brazil	143,000	4%
USA	102,000	3%
Uzbekistan	93,000	3%
World total	3,622,000

* Reasonably Assured Resources plus Inferred Resources, to US$ 80/kg U, 1/1/03, from OECD NEA & IAEA, Uranium 2003: Resources, Production and Demand, updated 2005 b y Geoscience Aust.

 

WORLD MARKETS

In the 1980s large stockpiles were built up by utilities, totalling about four times annual consumption. Prices dropped and mine production fell. Little exploration for uranium has been done since then. Today world uranium consumption is about 80,000 tonnes U₃O₈ and production is only about 42,000 tonnes, the balance being from stockpiles and recycled military uranium. Prices rose briefly in 1995-96 but then declined. They have been rising more strongly since early 2001.

See also UIC briefing papers on Uranium Markets and World Uranium Mines.

 

12 months to 30 June each year 

FOB, 12 months to 30 June each yearGeneral Sources:
ABARE, DITR, ANSTO,
ERA & WMC quarterly and Annual Reports
 

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Uranium Information Centre Ltd
A.C.N. 005 503 828

GPO Box 1649N, Melbourne 3001, Australia
phone (03) 9629 7744
fax (03) 9629 7207
 

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Appendix

A brief history of Australian uranium mining

The existence of uranium deposits in Australia has been known since the 1890s. Some uranium ores were mined in the 1930s at Radium Hill and Mount Painter, South Australia, to recover minute amounts of radium for medical purposes. Some uranium was also recovered and used as a bright yellow pigment in glass and ceramics.

Following requests from the British and United States governments, systematic exploration for uranium began in 1944. In 1948 the Commonwealth Government offered tax-free rewards for the discovery of uranium orebodies. As a result, uranium was discovered at Rum Jungle in 1949, and in the South Alligator River region (1953) of the Northern Territory, then at Mary Kathleen (1954) and Westmoreland (1956) in north west Queensland.

In 1952 a decision was taken to mine Rum Jungle, NT and it opened in 1954 as a Commonwealth Government enterprise. Radium Hill, SA was reopened in 1954. Mining began at Mary Kathleen, Qld in 1958 and in the South Alligator region, NT in 1959. Production at most mines ceased by 1964 and Rum Jungle closed in 1971, either when ore reserves were exhausted or contracts were filled. Sales of some 7730 tonnes of uranium from these operations were to supply material primarily intended for USA and UK weapons programs at that time. However much of it was used in civil power production.

The development of nuclear power stimulated a second wave of exploration activity in the late 1960s. In the Northern Territory, Ranger was discovered in 1969, Nabarlek and Koongarra in 1970, and Jabiluka in 1971. New sales contracts (for electric power generation) were made by Mary Kathleen Uranium Ltd., Queensland Mines Ltd. (for Nabarlek), and Ranger Uranium Mines Pty. Ltd., in the years 1970-72.

Successive governments (both Liberal Coalition and Labor) approved these, and Mary Kathleen began recommissioning its mine and mill in 1974. Consideration by the Commonwealth Government of additional sales contracts was deferred pending the findings of the Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, and its decision in the light of these. Mary Kathleen recommenced production of uranium oxide in 1976, after the Commonwealth Government had taken up a 42% share of the company.

The Commonwealth Government announced in 1977 that new uranium mining was to proceed, commencing with the Ranger project in the Northern Territory. In 1979 it decided to sell its interest in Ranger, and as a result Energy Resources of Australia Ltd was set up to own and operate the mine. The mine opened in 1981, producing 2800 t/yr of uranium, sold to utilities in several countries. Production over three years to mid 2002 averaged 3533 t/yr of uranium.

In 1980, Queensland Mines opened Nabarlek in the same region of Northern Territory. The orebody was mined out in one dry season and the ore stockpiled for treatment from 1980. A total of 10,858 tonnes of uranium oxide were produced and sold to Japan, Finland and France, over 1981-88. The mine site is now rehabilitated.

At the end of 1982 Mary Kathleen in Queensland had depleted its ore and finally closed down after 4802 tonnes of uranium oxide had been produced in its second phase of operation. This then became the site of Australia’s first major rehabilitation project on a uranium mine site, which was completed at the end of 1985. The Rum Jungle Rehabilitation project also took place in the 1980s.

In the 1983 federal election the Australian Labor Party (ALP) won government and in 1984 the ALP National Conference amended the Party platform to what became known as “the three mines policy”, nominating Ranger, Nabarlek and Olympic Dam as the only projects from which exports would be permitted. Provisional approvals for marketing from other prospective uranium mines were cancelled. This policy persisted until the change of government in 1996, despite the fact that Nabarlek ceased production by 1988.

During 1988 Western Mining Corporation’s Olympic Dam project commenced operations. This is a large underground mine at Roxby Downs, South Australia, producing copper, with uranium and gold as by-products. Annual production of uranium started at some 1300 tonnes, with sales to Sweden, UK, South Korea and Japan. After a A$ 1.9 billion expansion project, production increased to over 4000 tonnes uranium per year by mid 2001.

Both Ranger and Nabarlek mines are on aboriginal land in the Alligator Rivers region of the Northern Territory, close to the Kakadu National Park. In fact the Ranger and two other leases are surrounded by the National Park but were deliberately excluded from it when the park was established. Ranger is served by the township of Jabiru, constructed largely for that purpose. Nabarlek employees were based in Darwin and commuted by air.

See also: Former Australian Uranium Mines

Photographs taken by Agence France Presse but not distributed by major US media outlets show the bodies of Iraqi civilians killed in March in a home in Ishaqi, Iraq. Those photographs — may of which are graphic and show the decaying bodies of children, some of them babies — are displayed below. Please do not scroll down if you do not wish to see these photos.

The photographs were discovered and highlighted by by Christopher Floyd of ChrisFloyd.com earlier this year.

According to Reuters report on the incident, the 11 bodies of men, women and children, including a 75-year old grandmother and a child under the age one one, were found bound in their blown-up home. All were shot in the head; the house was riddled with bullets. At the time, “The U.S. military said two women and a child died during the bid to seize an al Qaeda militant from a house.”

“A senior Iraqi police officer said autopsies on the bodies, which included five children, showed each had been shot in the head. Community leaders said they were outraged at the killings and demanded an explanation from the U.S. military,” Reuters reported. “Television footage showed the bodies in the Tikrit morgue — five children, two men and four women. Their wounds were not clear though one infant had a gaping head wound.”

Wrote Floyd, “We know from photographic evidence that the corpses of two men, four shrouded figure s (women, according to the villagers), and five children – all of them apparently under the age of five, one as young as seven months – were pulled from the rubble of the house and laid out for burial beneath the bright, blank desert sky. We know that an Associated Press reporter on the scene saw the ruined house, and a photographer for Agence France Presse took the pictures of the bodies.”

“We know that two Iraqi police officials, Major Ali Ahmed and Colonel Farouq Hussein – both employed by the U.S.-backed Iraqi government – told Reuters that the 11 occupants of the house, including the five children, had been bound and shot in the head before the house was blown up,” Floyd added. “We know that the U.S.-backed Iraqi police told Reuters that an American helicopter landed on the roof in the early hours of the morning, then the house was blown up, and then the victims were discovered. We know that the U.S.-backed Iraqi police said that an autopsy performed on the bodies found that “all the victims had gunshot wounds to the head.” We know that the U.S.-backed Iraqi police said they found “spent American-issue cartridges in the rubble.”

The photographs, quite graphic, follow.

Press Accounts Suggest Possible Military ‘Cover-up’ in Ishagi Killings

Soldiers cleared in Ishaqi incident, Haditha investigation continues

PHOTOGRAPHS taken by American military intelligence have provided crucial evidence that up to 24 Iraqis were massacred by marines in Haditha, an insurgent stronghold on the banks of the Euphrates.

One portrays an Iraqi mother and young child, kneeling on the floor, as if in prayer. They have been shot dead at close range.

The pictures show other victims, shot execution-style in the head and chest in their homes. An American government official said they revealed that the marines involved had “suffered a total breakdown in morality and leadership”.

The killings are emerging as the worst known American atrocity of the Iraq war. At least seven women and three children were among those killed. Witness accounts obtained by The Sunday Times suggest the toll of children may be as high as six. “This one is ugly,” a US military official said.

In Britain, the chief of the defence staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, said yesterday that the “appalling” reports of the massacre could undermine British support for the war. “This sort of accusation does make that harder to achieve,” he said.

The pictures of the dead, which are being closely guarded by the US naval criminal investigation service, were taken by a military photographer who is believed to have arrived on the scene moments after the shootings.

Many American forces are accompanied by photographers to gather intelligence and to shield soldiers from false accusations of torture, intimidation and violence. In this case, the evidence points fatefully to a murder spree by marines.

The stain on the American military could prove harder to erase than the photographs of sadistic prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.

Comparisons are being made to the My Lai massacre in 1968 in Vietnam, in which American soldiers slaughtered up to 500 villagers.

Up to a dozen marines may face criminal charges including murder, which carries the death penalty, dereliction of duty and filing a false report. Three marine commanders were suspended last month.

The naval inquiry is focusing on the actions of a sergeant who may have been the leader of a four-man “fire team”.

Miguel Terrazas, 20, a lance-corporal from El Paso, Texas, was travelling in a convoy of four Humvees in Haditha just after 7am on November 19 last year when a roadside bomb struck his vehicle, killing him and wounding two others.

The events that followed are the subject of two military inquiries due to report soon: one into the facts, the other into a cover-up.

One witness, Aws Fahmi, heard his neighbour, Yunis Salim Khafif, plead for his life in English, shouting: “I am a friend, I am good.”

“But they killed him, his wife and daughters,” Fahmi said.

It is clear the marines lied by blaming the deaths of 15 civilians on the roadside bomb and alleging that a further eight Iraqis were insurgents who died in a gun battle.

Asked last week how many Iraqis were killed by the roadside bomb, a Pentagon official said: “Zero.” The marines never came under hostile fire, a spokesman added.

Investigators have established that the killings unfolded over three to five hours. “This was not a burst of fire, but a sustained operation,” a Pentagon official said.

The Sunday Times has reconstructed the events with the help of Abdul Rahman al-Mashandani, of the Hammourabi human rights group in Iraq. It appears the first killings took place when a taxi carrying four students pulled up at a checkpoint set up by the marines.

Abu Makram, 50, had been awakened by the roadside bomb and watched from his window as the terror unfolded. The car’s occupants were all ordered out and shot.

The marines then stormed three nearby houses. “They blew open the front door of the first house,” Makram recalled, “Once they were inside, we heard another explosion followed by a hail of gunfire.”

It was the home of 76-year-old Abdul Hameed Ali Hassan, whose leg had been amputated because of diabetes. “He was a blind old man in a wheelchair,” Makram said.

Hassan’s granddaughter, Iman Waleed, 10, was in her nightclothes. “About 10 marines entered the house,” she said. “They threw hand grenades and began firing in all directions. Grandpa was sitting close to the hall and they shot him dead.”

In a nearby room, her father was reading the Koran. “The American soldiers went into the room and killed him too,” Iman said. “They gathered all of us into one room — my grandma, my mama, my brothers and my uncles. They threw in two handgrenades and started shooting at us.”

The adults tried to protect the children with their bodies, but were slain. When Iman dared to look, she saw that “everyone was dead around me except for my brother and my uncle”.

Both were injured and Iman was hurt in the leg. The rest of the family, including her brother, Abdullah, 4, died.

Iman fled next-door, where her other grandfather Yunis lived, only to find everybody there appeared to have been killed too. There was in fact one survivor, Safa Yunis Salim, 12.

“My daddy tried to open the door to let the Americans in, but he was immediately shot in the head and body,” Safa said.

“I managed to hide under the body of my brother Mohammed. His blood covered me and protected me as I pretended to be dead.” They also killed her four sisters including Aysha, 4, and Zainab, 2.

Five hours passed before Safa managed to escape. “I was the only one who survived. I watched them kill my entire family. I am all alone now,” she said, crying.

When the marines stormed the third house they changed tactics. The men were separated from the women and stuffed into a large cupboard, according to Yussef Ayed Ahmad, the brother of the dead men, who lived next-door.

“They placed my four brothers into the wardrobe and proceeded to shoot them as they were inside,” he said. “My mother and sister told me later how they died.”

The marines found an AK 47 in the house — the only gun found in all three homes — but there is no evidence it was fired.

The marines’ cover story quickly began to unravel. In March, Time magazine revealed the existence of a video shot the day after the attack by an Iraqi student journalist. It showed the victims still in their nightclothes, a trail of blood and shrapnel and bullet marks on the walls.

At the local morgue Waleed al Obeidi, who received the corpses 24 hours after the killings, also disputed the marines’ account. “Two bodies were completely charred,” he said. “The others, including women and children, had all been shot at close range.”

According to some reports, American warplanes dropped 500lb bombs on the houses.

The marines paid $2,500 (£1,350) in compensation for each of the 15 victims who were shot in their homes. They refused to pay for the four brothers and five occupants of the taxi, claiming they were insurgents. Officials now say those men were innocent.

General Michael Hagee, the US Marine Corps commander, flew to Baghdad last week to prepare his troops for the grim findings of the investigation. Many marines had witnessed the deaths of friends, he said. “The effects of these events can be numbing. There is the risk of becoming indifferent to the loss of a human life, as well as bringing dishonour upon ourselves.”

The conclusions are likely to provoke widespread revulsion.

President George W Bush said last week that the abuse at Abu Ghraib was one of his greatest regrets about the Iraq war. If the photographs from Haditha surface, they could provide a set of images that would be every bit as shocking.

Source: Times

Related:

• Fresh evidence of ‘executions’ by rogue US marines in Iraq
• Photos Indicate Civilians Slain Execution-Style
• The Haditha Scandal’s Other Casualty
• Alleged Killing of Civilians by Marines Threatens Support for War
• Marine Officer Being Investigated for Alleged Iraqi Murders Cover Up
• Marine Scandal Could Roil Iraq
• Four Marines Singled Out in Iraq Massacre Investigation
• Fresh Evidence of ‘Executions’ by Rogue US Marines in Iraq
• The Massacre and the Marines
• US ‘Winding Up’ Iraq Deaths Probe