Thousands of protestors marched against French uranium miner Areva in the remote town of Arlit in Niger.
Areva has been working in Niger for more than 50 years with two sites, Somair and Cominak, presently producing, and its long-term deal with the government of Niger is up for renegotiation at the end of 2013.The roughly 5,000 protesters in Arlit were out in support of a Niger government audit to settle on how to better share out revenues from the 2 miners Reuter’s reports:
We are showing Areva that we are fed up and we're demonstrating our support for the government in the contract restitution negotiations, Azaoua Mamane, an Arlit civil society spokesman, said in an interview with a private radio station. We do not have enough drinking water while the company pumps 20 million cubic meters of water each year for free. The government must negotiate a win-win partnership, Mamane said.
The two mines together produce 4,500 tonnes of uranium for export to France and another project at Imouraren, which will be the biggest uranium mine in Africa, is set to start operations in 2015.The Somair mine was back to full production in August, after a suicide attack in May killed one worker and injured 14 in part shutting down mining.
Prices for uranium are languish at 8-year lows of $34 a pound and have not recovered since the Fukushima failure in Japan in 2011 despite more than 70 reactors being built around the world, 29 of them in China.
Areva has been working in Niger for more than 50 years with two sites, Somair and Cominak, presently producing, and its long-term deal with the government of Niger is up for renegotiation at the end of 2013.The roughly 5,000 protesters in Arlit were out in support of a Niger government audit to settle on how to better share out revenues from the 2 miners Reuter’s reports:
We are showing Areva that we are fed up and we're demonstrating our support for the government in the contract restitution negotiations, Azaoua Mamane, an Arlit civil society spokesman, said in an interview with a private radio station. We do not have enough drinking water while the company pumps 20 million cubic meters of water each year for free. The government must negotiate a win-win partnership, Mamane said.
The two mines together produce 4,500 tonnes of uranium for export to France and another project at Imouraren, which will be the biggest uranium mine in Africa, is set to start operations in 2015.The Somair mine was back to full production in August, after a suicide attack in May killed one worker and injured 14 in part shutting down mining.
Prices for uranium are languish at 8-year lows of $34 a pound and have not recovered since the Fukushima failure in Japan in 2011 despite more than 70 reactors being built around the world, 29 of them in China.
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