Russia seeks to become world's largest uranium producer
14:2627/05/2009 MOSCOW, May 27 (RIA Novosti) - Russia, which has the world's second-largest uranium reserves and ranks fifth for output, is seeking to improve its position in this area, the executive director of nuclear power company Atomenergoprom said on Wednesday.
Kirill Komarov said that Russia currently accounted for 40% of global services for uranium enrichment.
"The share of our rivals is half as much," Komarov said, adding Russia charged far less than most of its competitors to construct nuclear power plants.
Komarov said that 40 nuclear reactors were currently under construction in the world, 14 of them being built by Atomenergoprom, which is part of state-run civilian nuclear power corporation Rosatom.
Rosatom chief Sergei Kiriyenko said on May 26 that Russia's total uranium reserves were significantly more than 1 million tons, specifying that Russia had 575,000 tons of recoverable uranium reserves and 875,000 tons of proven reserves.
He added that including uranium stocks in storage, total reserves exceeded 1 million tons.
He did not specify how much uranium was currently in storage, saying that the information was classified, but indicated that there was sufficient uranium supplies to run current and future nuclear power plants for the next 60 years.
Kiriyenko said new uranium fields would be developed, in particular one in South Yakutia.
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