Uranium and diamonds are the two pillars of Namibia’s heavy industry. Extraction of both minerals yields almost equal added value – about $200 million a year. The both industries employ about 3 000 miners. De facto, they are currently monopolized by the British capital - diamonds by De Beers and uranium by RTZ. Totally, diamonds and uranium produce about 70% of foreign currency earnings for the nation (approximately $500 million a year).
However, there are essential distinctions between the diamond and uranium industries.
Firstly, from the geological point of view diamonds appear to be an exogenous value as all the deposits are alluvial (formed by the Orange River and an ocean current along the country’s coastline). The inland deposits are almost exhausted and will be worked out by 2020. Offshore diamond mining is balancing on the verge of profitability; besides, diamond reserves on the shelf are insignificant. On the contrary, uranium ores are of primary origin and their reserves are worked out for several percent only. According to Techsnabexport, ultimate reserves of uranium ores belonging to different price categories in Namibia are estimated at 280,000 tons of uranium. It is noteworthy that the already prospected reserves will suffice for 30 years of mining at a double rate (for possible indemnification of losses due to depleting diamond fields to the national budget of Namibia).
Secondly, Namibia has mastered diamond cutting and theoretically the country is capable of processing all of its rough output independently. And on the contrary, by no means Namibia is capable to process commercial consignments of uranium oxide into nuclear fuel.
Thirdly, the world diamond market conjuncture is extremely unstable because of the ongoing global economic crisis. Nobody is able to predict diamond prices and demand for more than a year. On the contrary, the economic crisis has stipulated a steady demand for uranium (for the coming 100 years) at a stable price of some $100 per kilogram (or $40 per pound).
These distinctions are clearly reflected in the activity of foreign companies. Although more than a dozen companies have risen to prominence in the Namibian diamond industry, including such heavyweights as ММТС, Lev Leviev, Maurice Tempelsman, Schachter-Namdar, Steinmetz, however all of them, with the exception of De Beers long and reliably operating in Namibia, appear to be engaged in transient business. On the other hand, the uranium industry has lately turned into a field of a rush fight for potential mineral deposits among the biggest players of the world – Russia, France, Canada, China, Japan, Korea and India.
As for Russia, it should be said that in the end of May, 2010 following the negotiations at the Kremlin the governments of the two countries signed a memorandum of mutual understanding mentioning their intention to develop cooperation in the field of geological exploration and uranium mining in Namibia. To implement these plans Rosatom, Russia’s state corporation for atomic power, and the Ministry of Mines and Energy of Namibia have established a joint work group which will include OAO Atomredmetzoloto (Russia) and Epangelo Mining (Pty) Ltd (Namibia). Russia expects to get shares in the uranium deposits in Namibia and invest about $1 billion into this country, Sergey Kirienko, the head of Rosatom, recently said. Some Russian firms have finalized or are finalizing licenses for uranium-rich sites and these are in particular Atomredmetzoloto, Renova, Vneshtorgbank and Arlan.
One should bear it in mind that Russia has the largest facilities for uranium enrichment (approximately 40% of the world level) while it commands 17% of nuclear fuel fabrication and less than 10% of uranium output (the Russians are only in the fifth place in the world after Namibia).
It is noteworthy that besides their domestic deposits in Transbaikalia and Southern Yakutia the Russian atomic scientists have Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Ukraine which have easier and more “habitual” ores. The point is that uranium ores of Namibia are rather lean and refractory (similar to alaskite). The uranium mineralization containing thin impregnations (up to 0.3 mm) is presented by broggerite (50% of the reserves), gummite, uranophane, carnotite (40%), betafite and brannerite (5%). The mineralization is non-uniform containing an average of 0.04% of uranium.
In Namibia there are two operating uranium mines. The Rössing uranium field near Swakopmund has been developed for more than 35 years. The operator, Rossing Uranium, is a public company (its largest shareholders are Rio Tinto, an English-Australian mining group, owning 69% and Iranian Foreign Investment Company owning 15%). Their output is about 12 million tons of ore yielding 4,000 tons of uranium. Starting from 2006 Paladin Energy operating the Langer Heinrich Mine produces around 1,500 tons of uranium in a year. As a whole, Namibia accounts approximately for 10% of the world’s uranium output. At present the country issued more than 40 exclusive licenses for uranium exploration and 12 licenses for uranium mining.
It is known that Namibia is considerably inferior to the world’s uranium leaders (for example, to the Kazakhstan uranium deposits where a cheap technique of underground leaching is employed). However, only uranium is capable to provide well-being for Namibia in the 21st century.
Namibia’s advantages (from the point of view of uranium) are:
1) Superficial occurrence of uranium ores that allows extraction in open-cast mines at a low cost.
2) A favorable climate, dry and without acute fluctuations, which easily permits to regulate technological processes (for example, to maintain leaching parameters without varying the composition of reacting substances).
3) Namibia has an advanced infrastructure, roads, and everything there is very compact.
4) Namibia is an advanced country having qualified labor force.
5) Namibia enjoys a stable political environment.
It is obvious that the uranium players have sufficient money to finance construction of new uranium mines for one hundred percent. In its turn, Namibia can easily switch over its manpower from the decreasing diamond mines to developing uranium mines. The majority of work specialties coincide at the stage of overburden operations, at the stage of ore recovery and at the stage of ore dressing, as well as for tailing operations. There will only be needed additional 20 or 30 engineering employees for sophisticated technological processes like a) acid leaching, b) ion-exchange concentration, c) tri-butyl-phosphate-aided extraction. Such experts may be easily trained in Russia – for instance at the D. Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia. It will make no essential difference what foreign companies will be the best uranium miners – Russian, Chinese or French. With a probability of 95% raw uranium will be sent for enrichment to the eighth-generation Russian centrifuges as the most energy-efficient in the world.
Due to high inertness of mining operations switching from diamonds to uranium may occur step by step without inflicting serious consequences within 10 years. Smooth transition will also allow the world diamond market to adapt to gradual disappearance of high-quality Namibian diamonds. Their absence may be made up for by other deposits, for example by Siberian diamond fields whose potential reserves are to be evaluated by Russia which has already allocated 200 million rubles for the purpose.
According to Nikolay Pokhilenko, Director of the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a considerable part of the work program deals with evaluating the reliability of prognostic and estimation works performed earlier on promising sites. The geography of these sites, besides Yakutia, includes the areas of the Krasnoyarsk Territory and Irkutsk Region. The project program includes works aimed at finding out the character of primary sources for alluvial diamond fields in the northern part of the Yakut diamondiferous province, as well as analysis of all the currently available information related to possible presence of nonconventional primary diamond deposits on the territory of the Siberian Platform.
So it is not completely excluded that future emphases in the global diamond-mining industry will be displaced from the South to the North, while in the uranium-mining industry in the opposite direction.
Vladimir Teslenko for Rough&Polished
