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First barrel of uranium extracted from Chinese demonstration facility only a year after construction began

Global Times

By Global Times Published: Jul 12, 2025 04:59 PM

China marked a major breakthrough in domestic uranium production on Saturday, as the National No.1 Uranium Demonstration Project in Ordos, North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, successfully yielded its first barrel of uranium, according to the official social media account of China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC).

The milestone is expected to significantly enhance China's capacity to independently secure strategic energy resources.

As China's largest and most advanced natural uranium production base to date, the project began construction in July 2024 and achieved production within a year — setting a new national benchmark for uranium project development speed, said CNNC.

The project applies a full suite of cutting-edge techniques — including uranium-coal co-mining, digital shaft construction, visualized leaching, and remote intelligent control — many of which were previously validated through pilot testing, said Su Xuebin, chief engineer of China National Uranium Co (CNUC) under the CNNC and a veteran uranium expert, noting that the current project marks the first comprehensive industrial application of these technologies.

Modular and standardized construction proved critical to the project's efficiency. "We standardized key processes and equipment, enabling an assembly-line approach to construction," Su said. Backed by a powerful digital coordination platform, the team achieved record-setting project management efficiency. "Previously, building a large mine would take several years. Now, we've completed a thousand-ton capacity site in just one year."

Natural uranium is a vital strategic resource and a cornerstone of the nuclear fuel cycle. As the largest natural uranium project in the 70-year history of China's nuclear geology and mining sector, the successful rollout of the National No.1 Uranium Demonstration Project heralds a new era of green, safe, smart and efficient uranium development, according to the CNNC.

The project is a major achievement in China's third-generation uranium mining and metallurgy technology,, according to another representative from CNUC. "It establishes a modernized system centered on environmental protection, intelligent monitoring, and high-efficiency output, setting a new standard for smart uranium mines, the representative said.

Su explained that China's uranium exploration traditionally focused on volcanic and granite-type deposits in the south. Over the past two decades, however, northern sandstone-type deposits have become the new frontier.

In 2023, China unveiled ten major uranium prospecting breakthroughs, predicting more than 2.8 million tons of uranium resources, primarily in northern regions such as the Ordos Basin — now China's largest uranium base, Su said.

China currently has the world's largest number of operating and under-construction nuclear reactors. The technologies developed in the National No.1 Uranium Demonstration Project will be applied across other northern basins, including Songliao, Eren, Ordos and Ili, to establish multiple large-scale uranium production bases that can meet the growing resource demand of the nuclear energy sector, said the CNNC.