FUTURE MARKET
According to the report of International Atomic Energy Agency, there are 326 reactors operating at present and are expected to rise to 545 by 2030 as shown below.
IMPORTERS
2014
2030
US & CANADA
117
121
EUROPE
126
120
RUSSIA
24
45
CHINA
20
128
INDIA
5
27
ASIA
30
86
MIDDLE EAST
4
18
Total
326
545
According to reports of IAEA the nuclear electricity production is going to increase between 30% to 80% by 2030 and nuclear plants are expected to increase by 40% to 110%. More nuclear plants will have more uranium requirement.
60% of the world uranium is reserved in 4 countries.Following table shows the distribution of uranium globally
S. No.
Country
Uranium Reserve
1
Australia
31%
2
Kazakhstan
12%
3
Russia
9%
4
Canada
9%
New Developing market for uranium
Australia exports its uranium to many countries like: USA, South Korea, Canada, Japan, Russia, China, Taiwan, European Union countries (UK, France, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Belgium, and Spain). Bilateral agreements are being signed with China, Russia, India and UAE which will further increase the uranium export from Australia.
China
China is world’s fastest growing economy and with this its energy requirement if very high. At present china has 20 reactors producing 2% of china electricity. China wants to increase its number of reactors from 20 to 128 by 2030. Before-Fukushima the nuclear growth in china was very high but after the Fukushima disaster now the nuclear growth have approached to small numbers in case of new reactors. China has a target of producing 65 GW by 2030.Therefore the china requirement for uranium will increase by 3.5 times then the present requirement. If the consumtion of 1GW is 180 T U then China will require 11,700 Tonnes of U per year. And now Australia is suppling about 18% of chia’s requirement
India
Uranium requirement of India in 2013 was 950 T U. India is expected to increase its nuclear reactor’s number from % to 27 by 2030. According to IAEA India will increase its nuclear electricity from 25 to 75 GW by 2030.But Indian market is very unpredictive India was expected to increase its nuclear electricity by 18-25 GW in 1987 but its grew to 0.95 GW. In 2000 it was expected 40 GW however it grew to 2.7 GW. M. Angwin from AUA (Australian Uranium Association) said that Australia can sell about 2700 tonnes of uranium to India by 2030 with the expected revenue of $275 million. However according to Prime Minister Gillard India will increase its nuclear electricity from 3% to 40 % by 2050.
Russia
Uranium requirement of Russia in 2012 was 4320 T U. If Australia supply about 20% requirement of Russia then by 2030 the Russian requirement will rise to 8100 T U. Moreover Russia has about 9% of the world’s uranium reserve. It is expected that the Russian U requirement will get double by 2030.This will lead to the about $1 Billion trade between Australia and Russia.
U.A.E
UAE is also increasing its nuclear electricity production to 1.4 GW at present and will further rise in future. Bilateral agreements will lead to further expansion of Australian mining business in future.
Other Nations
There is little for Australia’s uranium companies to cheer about in other customer countries (see the World Nuclear Industry Status Report for more detail):
USA, UK and CANADA are also expected to increase their nuclear electricity production.
However Belgium and Germany have plans to get off from nuclear power and France is reducing its nuclear energy..
South Koreans now started believing nuclear energy unsafe. People feeling nuclear energy safe has fallen down from 70% in 2010 to 30 % in 2012.
Because of the disasters like Fukushima and Charnoble decreases the public confidence on nuclear energy. This considerably affects the uranium mining trade.
Economic impact of uranium mining
Major importers of Australian uranium are Asia, North America and Europe. Countries like China,
