World's biggest uranium firm coming to India

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Canada's Cameco, the world's biggest mining company, is set to come in India.

Cameco, which accounts for 15 percent of the world's uranium production, said that the civil nuclear deal between the two countries have agreed to sign has opened "an exciting opportunity" for it.

The universal giant, which has opened an office in Hyderabad, it will sell not only uranium but also mining technology toward India.

"India's declared programme for the construction of new nuclear power plants is in second only to China in its scope, so India signifies a large market opportunity for any uranium fuel supplier," Cameco spokesperson Lyle Krahn told said.

"The nuclear deal with India will agree to us to look into potential business opportunities in a growing market."

Separately from supplying uranium to India, he said his company will seem at "the entire spectrum from exploration to fabrication".

Krahn said the group was "well-positioned with India to secure business opportunities. We plan to follow long-term uranium sales agreements once the government agreements are in place".

Requested what kind of business volume he was looking at in India, he said: "India presently has over 4,000 megawatts of nuclear generating capacity and consumes about 2 million pounds of uranium annually.

"It has announced procedures to increase this to a range of 21,000 to 29,000 megawatts by 2020, but it does not currently have the domestic uranium supply to support such a nuclear programme."

While India only produces less than one million pounds of uranium annually, Krahn said: "The exclusion of the sanctions would provide an additional market for nuclear fuel suppliers like Cameco. Depending on the megawatt raise, it could range from seven to nine million pounds of uranium (U3O8) by 2020."

Cameco plans to twice its uranium production to 40 million pounds annually by 2018 to meet the demand from India and China .

Hemant Shah of mining tools maker Cubex, which is stare at to supply equipment to the Uranium Corp of India, said: "Canada has been poorly harm by the nuclear ban forced by the previous Liberal Party government. Thankfully, the current government has realized the importance of India."

The Canada-India Foundation stated: "The nuclear agreement is a very encouraging development for Indo-Canadian relations. It strengthen India's long standing commitment to the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

"Coming at the moment of India's significant economic growth , this partnership would definitely cover the way for greater economic co-operation between India and Canada," said the top aviation businessman.