Britain and India agree nuclear power deal

Britain and India today agreed the text of a deal that will allow British companies to enter the fray against Russia and France in the scramble to supply nuclear power equipment worth an estimated $150 billion. The breakthrough, which emerged from talks held in London, comes after international sanctions that had prevented India from buying civilian nuclear technology for 30 years were lifted in 2008. Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, said: "This is a very, very significant advance, and I look forward to that text being signed off at a ministerial level before long." The countries declined to give further details, but officials said it would provide "major trade opportunities" for British businesses. India is expected to increase the power it generates from nuclear sources 100-fold in the next 40 years and American Government offials estimate that deals worth at least $150 billion will be generated. A British Government spokesman added: "Fifty years after building the world's first commercially operated power station, the UK is still one of the market leaders in this sector. It's an industry that earns the UK £700 million in overseas business every year and employs over 80,000 people across the nuclear supply chain."

China Guangdong Nuclear buys majority stake in Australia Energy Metals

China's Uranium Development Co Ltd, a subsidiary of China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group Co Ltd, on Tuesday announced that it successfully acquired a majority stake in Energy Metals Ltd, an Australian company mainly engaged in uranium exploration, sources reported. Uranium Development in the fourth quarter of last year made a tender offer for a 70% stake in Energy Metals. It acquired a 66% stake. It is the first time that a Chinese clean-energy enterprise has entered into cooperation with an Australian company on a uranium-ore project. Zhang Weiqing, vice manager of China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group, said in an interview that China has strong demand for nuclear power and clean energy, while Australia has rich natural resources, which will make the cooperation complementary.

The nuclear industry - Unexpected reaction

THE nuclear industry got an unexpected boost from Barack Obama in his State of the Union address last month. The president pledged to build a "new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants". On February 1st he followed that up in his proposed budget for 2011 by tripling to $54 billion the value of loans for new nuclear plants the government is offering to guarantee. Elsewhere, too, prospects for the business look good: the United Arab Emirates (UAE) completed a tender for four nuclear plants in December, Vietnam is planning a similar deal this year and many other countries, from Italy to Indonesia, are hoping to build new reactors soon. Yet the $40 billion contract in the UAE, won by a consortium led by Korean Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO), South Korea's largely state-owned electricity monopoly, has caused consternation among the six big firms that have dominated the industry for decades: GE and Westinghouse of America, Areva of France, and Toshiba, Hitachi and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan. Russian and Chinese firms hope to follow the Koreans' lead. Suddenly the incumbents are confronted by emerging-market "national champions" with the full backing of their governments-an invaluable asset in a high-liability business like nuclear power.

U.S. Energy Dept cancels surplus uranium transfers

The U.S. Energy Department has canceled plans to put into the market during 2011 extra government-owned surplus uranium supplies, Energy Secretary Steven Chu told Congress on Thursday, but the uranium transfers will continue for this year. The department had planned to transfer next year up to 1,125 tonnes, or about 2.48 million lbs, of its surplus uranium a year to raise money to pay for the cleanup of the Portsmouth uranium enrichment plant in Ohio. The uranium would have been transferred to USEC Inc (USU.N). The company is one of the biggest suppliers of low enriched uranium that is used as fuel for nuclear power plants. However, Chu told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that the department did not want to put too much uranium in the market because it would go against an earlier agreement with uranium producers. Not only would business be taken away from domestic uranium producers, but the additional government supplies in the market could have depressed prices, making it difficult for producers to expand operations.

Report: Sweden probes claims Russia dumped waste

Swedish TV is reporting that a prosecutor is investigating claims that Russia dumped radioactive waste in the Baltic Sea in the early 1990s. Prosecutor Mats Palm told national broadcaster SVT he started the probe Thursday after the network aired a report saying Russia's military dropped radioactive waste and chemical weapons off the island of Gotland, in Sweden's economic zone. The report claims the material came from a military base in Latvia and that the Russians wanted to get rid of it as they withdrew from the Baltic countries following the Soviet collapse in 1991. It cites classified Swedish military reports and former intelligence sources. Calls to the Russian Embassy in Stockholm were not returned late Thursday.