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Cissy Zhou

China could be a big winner if the Trump administration demands that 25 per cent of United States’ uranium demand is supplied by American mines, experts say.
Currently both the US and China import more than 90 per cent of the uranium they consume.
The US is, however, considering a 25 per cent domestic production quota for national security reasons.
This would make an extra 4.5 million kilogram of uranium available on the global market, at a time when Chinese uranium buyers are scouring the globe for more purchases.
“China would actually benefit from a [US] import quota. When the supply of uranium increases in the general market, the price will drop, which is good for big uranium consumers like China,” said David Bo, president AP Energy Investments, a Beijing-based company that invests in energy and mining.
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In January last year, two US uranium miners, Energy Fuels and Ur-Energy, filed a Section 232 petition with the US Department of Commerce urging the Trump administration to cordon off a quarter of the uranium industry for American miners.
Section 232 is a piece of trade legislation which allows imports to be subject to duty if they are deemed a threat to national security. It was the clause under which US President Donald Trump slapped scything tariffs on imports of steel and aluminium last year.
The Department of Commerce has been investigating whether uranium imports constitute a national security risk and is expected to make a recommendation on April 14, Politico reported this week. Trump then has 90 days to decide whether to enforce tariffs, based on the recommendation.

Uranium – specifically Uranium-235, an isotope of uranium – is routinely processed for nuclear power generation and weapons.
With both superpowers relying on imports to feed their consumption, it is becoming an increasingly aggressive battleground on the international resources markets, particularly in Africa, where they are jostling for dominance.
In their statement calling for the production quota, Energy Fuels and Ur-Energy said that “China’s geopolitical ambitions increasingly threaten US national security,” and that it is “targeting us through the uranium mines of Namibia”, where some US supply is sourced.
Data from the US government body, the Energy Information Administration, shows that the US uranium imports from Namibia fell from a high of 9.9 per cent in 2013 to 3.9 per cent in 2016. The date for 2017 has not been disclosed.
Meanwhile, China – through the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) – has been hoovering up resources all over the continent, Namibia included, to the concern of US competitors.
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In 2018, the CNNC bought Rio Tinto’s controlling stake in the Rössing uranium mine in Namibia for US$106.5 million, adding to a stake in the Langer Heinrich mine, also in Namibia, bought in 2014 for US$190 million.
In 2010, meanwhile, the CNNC bought a 37 per cent share in the Azelik uranium mine in Niger, worth US$300 million.
“What seems to worry some US uranium mining companies is China's gradual acquisition of foreign uranium resources through overseas investment and joint ventures,” said Tong Zhao, a fellow at the Carnegie Nuclear Policy Programme in the Carnegie-Tsinghua Centre for Global Policy in Beijing.
These facilities are helping to feed a growing need for uranium in China which, In 2016, China was the fourth largest consumer of uranium in the world, behind the US, France and Russia.




However, it is set to overtake the US as world’s biggest consumer by 2030.
The World Nuclear Association estimates that China’s uranium demand in 2020 is expected to be over 11,000 tonnes of uranium (tU), rising to 18,500 tU in 2025 and 24,000 tU in 2030.
China now has 46 nuclear power reactors in operation and 11 more under construction, according to International Atomic Energy Agency statistics, putting it top of the agency’s list of countries “expanding” their nuclear power operations.
However, Zhao doubts whether its growth is a national security risk for the US, whose 98 operational nuclear reactors dwarfs China’s current total.
“The policy recommendation seems to follow the domestic companies’ commercial interests,” Zhao said. “Their efforts to play up the geopolitical threat for their own narrow interests may even undermine the broader interests of other domestic players in the US nuclear industry, as a higher uranium price would negatively affect the long-term sustainability of US nuclear power plants.”
Trading organisations in the US have argued that a 25 per cent quota would be a disaster for the US nuclear industry and result in huge increases in electricity prices.
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In a statement issued to Politico Pro, the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) said: “A typical single unit nuclear plant employs between 500 and 700 workers in jobs that pay, on average, 36 per cent above the prevailing local wage rate. To put that in perspective, the closure of one plant would lead to a loss of more jobs than in the entire US uranium mining industry.”
In another statement issued last year, when the Department of Commerce review was announced, the NEI cited a study by Northbridge Group, an economic consultancy, saying: “A proposed quota would impose an additional US$500 million to US$800 million per year costs on US nuclear power generators.”
A former senior official at the CNNC, meanwhile, implied that demand for uranium could usher in another front in the US-China trade war.
“The US, along with its allies, may try to restrict China’s nuclear power expansion since China has world’s largest number of nuclear power reactors under construction,” said the source, who asked to remain anonymous given the sensitivity of the subject matter.


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China could be a big winner if Donald Trump restricts US uranium imports, experts say

Inside the IAEA Low Enriched Uranium Bank in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan. Photo: IAEA

The United States is considering a 25 per cent domestic production quota of uranium for national security reasons. Photo: AFP

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FILE - In this Dec. 8, 1987 file photo U.S. President Ronald Reagan, right, and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev exchange pens during the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty signing ceremony in the White House East Room in Washington, D.C. Gorbachev's translator Pavel Palazhchenko stands in the middle. Trump's announcement that the United States would leave the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces, or INF, treaty brought sharp criticism on Sunday Oct. 21, 2018, from Russian officials and from former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who signed the treaty in 1987 with President Ronald Reagan. (AP Photo/Bob Daugherty, File)

US President Donald Trump addresses the annual American Farm Bureau Federation convention in the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana on January 14, 2019. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP)

The burnt remains of a village on the outskirts of Maiduguri, Nigeria, on December 17, 2018, after Boko Haram fighters set fire to homes. The US and China recently collaborated on the removal of weapons-grade uranium from Nigeria, in part because of the concern that the materials were vulnerable to a terrorist attack. Photo: AFP

How China hopes to play a leading role in developing next-generation nuclear reactors

The core equipment of a Chinese molten-salt reactor nuclear reactor. Photo: The Institute of Advanced Nuclear Energy Innovation, Chinese Academy of Sciences

FILE - In this June 10, 2005 file photo, workers walk past a part of Qinshan No. 2 Nuclear Power Plant, China's first self-designed and self-built national commercial nuclear power plant in Qinshan, about 125 kilometers (about 90 miles) southwest of Shanghai, China. China is ready to approve new nuclear power plants as part of ambitious plans to reduce reliance on oil and coal, ending a moratorium it imposed because of Japan's Fukushima disaster in 2011. The Cabinet on Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2012, passed plans on nuclear power safety and development that said construction of nuclear power plants would resume "steadily." (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)

(FILES) This file picture taken by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) of the Air Photo Service on March 20, 2011 shows the stricken Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) Fukushima Dai-ichi No.1 nuclear power plant reactors number three (L) and four (R), with smoke rising from number three at the town of Okuma in Fukushima prefecture. Last year's nuclear accident at Fukushima was a man-made catastrophe and not only due to the tsunami that hit the plant, a Japanese parliamentary panel said on July 5, 2012 in its final report on the disaster. AFP PHOTO / FILES / AIR PHOTO SERVICE -----EDITORS NOTE-----RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO / AIR PHOTO SERVICE" - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS

Laurence Leung, a scientist with the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories.

China pips US in race to start the world’s first meltdown-proof nuclear power plant

An undated handout photo showing the Sanmen nuclear power plant under construction in Zhejiang province, facing the East China Sea. Photo: SCMP/Handout

(170525) -- FUQING, May 25, 2017 (Xinhua) -- The dome is being installed at No. 5 unit of Fuqing Nuclear Power Plant in Fuqing, southeast China's Fujian Province, May 25, 2017. As the containment dome installation was completed in Fuqing on Thursday, China's first demonstration nuclear power project using Hualong One technology, a domestically developed third-generation reactor design, has taken shape. (Xinhua/Jiang Kehong) (zhs)

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***ONE TIME USE ONLY*** 12 Sep 2012, Guangdong Province, China --- The dome of a containment structure is being hoisted at the Taishan Unit 2 Nuclear Power Plant in Taishan city, south Chinas Guangdong province, 12 September 2012. The dome of a containment structure at Taishan Unit 2 Nuclear Power Station in south Chinas Guangdong Province was topped out on Wednesday (12 September 2012). Construction will soon start under the dome. With two third-generation reactors under construction, the Taishan power plant is expected to be one of the worlds largest nuclear power projects. --- Image by © Imaginechina/Corbis

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The United States is considering a 25 per cent domestic production quota for national security reasons, sending 4.5 million kilogram back to the global market
This would benefit China’s rapidly growing nuclear power industry, according to energy experts


The United States is considering a 25 per cent domestic production quota for national security reasons, sending 6.5 million kilogram back to the global market.
