China deal would not 'make or break' uranium industry - National - theage.com.au


AUSTRALIA'S uranium industry has played down the economic value of selling its controversial resource to China.
On the eve of two days of talks between Australian and Chinese officials in Canberra, the Uranium Information Centre — largely funded by uranium miners BHP Billiton, Heathgate Resources and Rio Tinto — said the Chinese market was not "make or break". "It will be a significant step forward, but not a big deal," said Ian Hore-Lacy, the centre's manager.
China wants to buy Australian uranium for a massive expansion in nuclear energy plants, but it must sign an agreement to use the resource for peaceful purposes only. Australia, which has up to 40 per cent of the world's uranium deposits, exports 11,500 tonnes of the resource annually.
Prime Minister John Howard has ruled out exporting uranium without a proper safeguards agreement. In August last year, Australia revealed it was starting work on an agreement with China. Under the deal, the uranium would be covered by International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards and forbidden from being put to military use.
Mr Hore-Lacy said China was unlikely to obtain all its extra uranium from Australia and Chinese demand at its peak would represent only one-third of current exports, or one-sixth after BHP's planned tripling of its Olympic Dam mine in South Australia.
The industry expected Australian officials to cut no corners in asking China to agree to safeguards, said Mr Hore-Lacy. "I think all Australians would support a firm line on that."
The industry, he said, was trusting the professionalism of the chief negotiator John Carlson, the director-general of the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office, a division of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Australia sells uranium only to nations that have signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a bilateral agreement. Purchasing nations must not enrich the uranium for weapons, must separate the military and civil uranium processing, must show that the uranium can be tracked and accounted for and must agree to International Atomic Energy Agency inspections.
The deal has been attacked by critics who believe that China's nuclear energy program has links with its weapons program. China has also threatened the use of nuclear force over Taiwan and has a poor environmental record.
"The key things which have been so important in improving the nuclear industry in the West — the independent trade unions, rigorous media, independent regulators, green groups, environmental watchdogs — these don't exist in China," said Dave Sweeney, the Australian Conservation Foundation's anti-nuclear campaigner.

Mr Sweeney said a deal with China would give Rio Tinto more reasons to stick with its troubled Ranger mine in Kakadu and hold out for the traditional owners to change their minds over nearby Jabiluka. The deal would also put "wind in the sails" of uranium exploration companies who "continue to poke around parts of the country".
Mr Hore-Lacy and the Minerals Council of Australia, the mining lobby group, told The Age yesterday that they had no concerns about China buying Australian uranium. "China has high technical standards in the way they operate their (nuclear) equipment and most of it is of Western standards, nothing like Chernobyl," said Mr Hore-Lacy.
The fact that China was a nuclear power did not matter, said Rob Rawson, the director of safety and health at the council, as Australia already sold uranium to other nuclear powers such as Britain, the US and France.
Mr Hore-Lacy said it was inevitable that Australia would get more uranium mines — it was just a matter of waiting for state government policies to change. The states are against expanding uranium mining, against the wishes of the Federal Government.
With JEWEL TOPSFIELD