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2 Australia, the Saudi Arabia of
uranium By Alan Boyd
SYDNEY - A ban on the opening of new
uranium mines in Australia is likely to crumble
within months, raising the stakes in Asia's battle
to contain nuclear proliferation - and stop
regional superpowers manipulating energy supplies.
China and India, grappling with energy
crises, are leading the race to tap into the
world's biggest deposits of uranium as politicians
sever a decades-old alliance with the powerful
environmental movement.
Asian investors
and importers have been lining up since Prime
Minister John Howard's
federal Liberal government broke with the uranium
ban after its re-election in 1996 and ordered the
Northern Territory, which it indirectly rules, to
allow new mining.
But Canberra has no
jurisdiction over mining in the states, and its
gesture meant little until the Labor Party, which
is in opposition at the federal level but controls
all state governments, announced late last year
that it favored lifting the moratorium on mining
that was declared 25 years ago.
The three
resource-rich states that had been holding out
against a resumption of mining are now starting to
fall into line, with the government of Queensland
becoming the first to break ranks on Friday after
a study found that the lucrative coal industry
would not be affected.
South Australia,
already earning massive royalties from two working
uranium mines that pre-date the ban, has said it
is ready to switch sides, leaving only Western
Australia in the opposition camp.
In
Perth, Premier Alan Carpenter has said Western
Australia, which has limited gas and coal
reserves, wants to leave the uranium in the ground
as a domestic energy source for the future, by
which time there might be a solution to the
nuclear-waste conundrum.
However, Labor's
annual conference, scheduled for late next month,
is expected to adopt the pro-mining strategy to
placate business leaders ahead of a federal
election that will be called this year, forcing
Carpenter to relent.
"We will soon be the
largest uranium producer in the world, and we will
have the largest mine in the world, the Olympic
Dam, within a couple of years," Labor's National
Development spokesman, Chris Evans, said while
lobbying Carpenter in his home state. "Labor's got
to acknowledge that reality and move on."
Yet the other reality is that politicians
are unsure how to manage the resource,
collectively equivalent to 40% of the global
supply of uranium, without it being diverted from
power stations to make bombs. There is particular
uncertainty over the motivations of China and
India, which could become Australia's biggest
customers.
China last year secured access
to uranium exports from a Northern Territory mine
- the only site under federal jurisdiction - and
was also permitted to engage in exploration and
mining rights under the cover of a research and
technology agreement.
There are
unconfirmed reports that China has since opened
negotiations for the purchase of a shareholding in
the Honeymoon uranium project in South Australia,
which is expected to begin operations this year if
the mining ban is lifted.
And the
state-owned SinoSteel Group is expected to take
60% of a consortium developing the Crocker Well
mine in South Australia. This mine is not
scheduled to begin operation for a further three
years.
Meanwhile, India approached
Canberra last year to secure uranium for some of
the 30 new reactors that New Delhi plans to build
by 2030 to meet forecast energy growth. It was
initially rejected because - unlike China - India
has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT).
Liberal leaders later
suggested that a deal might be possible if India
negotiated a safeguards agreement with the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which
administers the NPT, that would apply only to
peaceful activities.
The about-turn
reportedly came after diplomatic pressure from the
United States, which reached a landmark nuclear
agreement with
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