For my nuclear nerds: one of the funny things about this is that Mongolia actually is home to a big uranium mine that the Russians abandoned in 1995.

France's Orano has a presence in Mongolia using the less environmentally disruptive ISR mining technique

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France's Orano has a presence in Mongolia using the less environmentally disruptive ISR mining technique

https://www.orano.group/en/orano-across-the-world/mongolia

yeah that's right. I was in Mongolia the week they signed that deal

They've proven the approach with the KATCO JV in Kazakhstan 

If I understand correctly, it should be replicable in Mongolia given that the deposit is between impermeable subsoil layers like in Kazakhstan

Were you there covering the deal? 

What do you think, will it work out?

Agreed that Orano has some of the best experience in this realm, i.e. in Niger. Not sure if they were planning to do processing in Mongolia.

I think of all the major global players, Orano is likely one of the better positioned to handle the shipments.

Is this project shipping ore, though, or processed uranium?

Hard to say. A lot depends on how you get ore out of the country. But it’s good politics. I was writing some other stories about the effects of climate change on the nomadic population but spent some time having breakfast with a couple of mining experts on Ulaanbaatar.