Alexander C. Kaufman
@kaufman
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.
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eirrann | he/him
@eirrann.eth
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
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Alexander C. Kaufman
@kaufman
yeah that's right. I was in Mongolia the week they signed that deal
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eirrann | he/him
@eirrann.eth
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
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eirrann | he/him
@eirrann.eth
Were you there covering the deal? What do you think, will it work out?
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Alexander C. Kaufman
@kaufman
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.
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eirrann | he/him
@eirrann.eth
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?
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Alexander C. Kaufman
@kaufman
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.
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eirrann | he/him
@eirrann.eth
If it's ISR, my limited understanding based on research about KATCO in Kalispell is that they extract the uranium from the liquid process solution, dry it and process to some extent, then ship it in (possibly containerized) drums.
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