China Courting Canadian Uranium

Chinese officials and investors have been sizing up the Canadian uranium sector, in what may be the early stages of an attempt to nail down raw materials for a nuclear building boom, according to an article by Geoffrey York and Wendy Stueck in the Globe and Mail. A Chinese delegation visited Cameco Corp. last fall, a spokeswoman for the Saskatoon-based uranium giant told the Globe and Mail. And a separate four-person Chinese investment team recently dropped in to the Vancouver offices of CanAlaska Ventures Ltd., a junior exploration company hunting for uranium in Saskatchewan's Athabasca Basin. Then, last week, a group from the Chinese consulate in Calgary visited the Saskatoon offices of Cogema Resources Inc., the uranium-mining arm of the French nuclear energy company Areva Group. Analysts told the Globe and Mail that they'd be surprised if China weren't actively scouting Canadian uranium prospects. China plans to invest $40-billion (U.S.) on nuclear generating capacity by 2020, which includes building as many as 30 new reactors to provide electricity for its booming economy. An official with Natural Resources Canada said China has been scouring the globe for uranium, talking to potential suppliers in Canada as well as Australia and Kazakhstan. Industry experts are forecasting a global uranium shortage of 45,000 tonnes over the next decade, according to a report last month by the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, and the Chinese boom is one of the key reasons for the expected shortage. Canada is the world's biggest uranium producer, with an 11,600-tonne-a-year output, and has shipped uranium to China before as fuel in two Candu reactors. But Canada's biggest customer is the United States, which buys almost half of Canada's annual production. A recent report in the International Herald Tribune suggested uranium sales were on the agenda when Prime Minister Paul Martin visited Beijing to meet Chinese leaders in January. Canadian officials would not confirm or deny the report, but Foreign Affairs spokesman André Lemay said it would "seem feasible" that Mr. Martin might have discussed uranium sales with the Chinese leaders. "Given that the Chinese are looking to increase dramatically the number of nuclear stations, it would logically follow that they would be looking to Canada to increase their imports of uranium," Mr. Lemay said. "Canada would definitely like to supply the reactors and the uranium."