Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL), the country’s monopoly atomic energy generator, plans to place orders for as much as 2,000 metric tonnes of uranium, equal to almost a fifth of Japan’s annual demand, before the end of 2008 to ensure fuel supplies.
NPCIL is in talks for long-term contracts and is also willing to invest up to $1 billion to buy stakes in as many as four uranium mines overseas, Chairman Shreyans Kumar Jain said in a telephone interview from Mumbai today.
India, where homes and industry suffer peak power shortages of as much as 17 per cent, will buy nuclear power reactors and uranium for the first time after a US-backed deal helped end a three-decade ban. The South Asian nation needs the radioactive fuel to fire the 28 reactors it plans to build to meet its target of adding 40,000 megawatts of nuclear generation by 2020.
“The next step is to ensure fuel supplies for our ongoing and planned projects,” Jain said. “We need long-term supplies and we’re looking to buy stakes in assets.”
President George W Bush on October 8 signed into law approval for US companies such as General Electric to sell India atomic fuel and technology. A group of 45 nuclear-supplier nations waived international restrictions on India last month.
NPCIL has approached companies in Canada, Kazakhstan, Africa and members of the Russian Federation for long-term supply contracts, he said. The company is also examining possible joint ventures in mining and buying stakes in uranium mines that haven’t been developed because of lack of funds.
Canada’s Cameco Corporation, the world’s largest supplier of uranium, said it is interested in selling the fuel to India “as soon as legally possible”.
The lifting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) ban “opens up the Indian nuclear market to the world and Cameco is looking forward to having access to that market,” Lyle Krahn, spokesman for Cameco, said on September 12.
“It’s a potential new source of demand for uranium.”
The state-run explorer’s current estimated consumption is 1.2 million pounds of uranium to supply 4,120 megawatts capacity at 17 plants across India, many of which are running below capacity for want of fuel.”
NPCIL is yet to approach Australia for supplies, Jain said. Australia, home to the world’s biggest-known reserves, reiterated on September 11 that it won’t sell uranium to countries that haven’t signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
JPMorgan Chase & Co cut its forecast for uranium prices through 2010 because of increased spot-market sales of the radioactive metal in September and the potential for the credit freeze to slow nuclear power project development.
Spot prices may average $65.98 a pound this year, down from an earlier forecast of $69.62, JPMorgan said in a report. It cut its 2009 forecast by 14 per cent to $64.75 and the 2010 estimate by 4.7 per cent to $71.50.
India is planning to spend as much as $14 billion to buy nuclear reactors from suppliers such as France’s Areva SA, US- based General Electric Co and Westinghouse Electric Co, Jain said in an earlier interview on September 8.
Uranium, a heavy metal, is concentrated through an enrichment process to produce fuel for a reactor.
