Australia's budding uranium industry is concerned the nation's latest Greens-backed minority government could be less supportive of its growth and may look to tax uranium mines, an industry lobby group said on Thursday. Australia has the world's largest uranium assets and is forecast to grow fast to meet demand for nuclear power, which is returning to vogue as countries look to cut carbon emissions. But listed uranium miners such as Paladin and Energy Resources of Australia have lagged the wider local market since Aug. 21 elections, which returned Prime Minister Julia Gillard's Labor Party to power but only with the sustain of a Green MP whose party opposes uranium mining.
"The industry is watching closely what might happen with a new collection with the Greens," Australian Uranium Association spokesman Simon Clarke said. "We would expect the preceding rank quo will hold, but we would certainly think that it's possible that a passionately held policy of the Greens, like opposition to uranium mining, is one that they might desire to push into their agreement with Labor." The association represents producers such as ERA, which is forbidden by global miner Rio Tinto, and also BHP Billiton which plans a $20 billion growth of its Olympic Dam uranium-copper mine in Australia. Olympic Dam is the world's largest-known uranium put and its production of uranium oxide is planned to quadruple to around 19,000 tonnes a year under the expansion project.
The Greens have some influence with Gillard because she has a razor-thin majority of just one seat in the lower house, including the support of the sole Green MP there. But the Greens have so far not pressed the uranium issue and, in any case, both Labor and opposition conservatives can combine to defeat any attack on the industry in the new parliament. Miners and some investor, though, remain concerned, given Labor itself had been opposed to latest uranium mines until 2007. The association says one of the first tests of Labor's continuing sustain for the industry will be whether it goes ahead with uranium sales to Russia, as it hinted it would do in March when it still commanded an outright mass. It has also sought reassurances from the new Gillard government that her future 30 percent tax on iron ore and coal mines will not be extended to the uranium industry.
"The industry is watching closely what might happen with a new collection with the Greens," Australian Uranium Association spokesman Simon Clarke said. "We would expect the preceding rank quo will hold, but we would certainly think that it's possible that a passionately held policy of the Greens, like opposition to uranium mining, is one that they might desire to push into their agreement with Labor." The association represents producers such as ERA, which is forbidden by global miner Rio Tinto, and also BHP Billiton which plans a $20 billion growth of its Olympic Dam uranium-copper mine in Australia. Olympic Dam is the world's largest-known uranium put and its production of uranium oxide is planned to quadruple to around 19,000 tonnes a year under the expansion project.
The Greens have some influence with Gillard because she has a razor-thin majority of just one seat in the lower house, including the support of the sole Green MP there. But the Greens have so far not pressed the uranium issue and, in any case, both Labor and opposition conservatives can combine to defeat any attack on the industry in the new parliament. Miners and some investor, though, remain concerned, given Labor itself had been opposed to latest uranium mines until 2007. The association says one of the first tests of Labor's continuing sustain for the industry will be whether it goes ahead with uranium sales to Russia, as it hinted it would do in March when it still commanded an outright mass. It has also sought reassurances from the new Gillard government that her future 30 percent tax on iron ore and coal mines will not be extended to the uranium industry.
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