22.12.14

India’s Uranium production dips 15%

At a time when India is trying to ramp up its uranium export, domestic production of the yellow cake has declined 10-15% after operations in the country's oldest and richest uranium mine in Jaduguda in Jharkhand was stopped by the state government. DAE sources said the department has taken steps to increase production from other mines to maintain the supply and demand, but the low quality of ore from other mines has led to increase in production cost.
The government has often cited “mismatch between demand and supply of domestic uranium” as the reason for under-functioning of the nuclear power reactors. Of the 20 reactors, 10 use domestic fuel and generate 2,840 mw of electricity.
Apart from importing uranium from Kazakhstan and Russia, India is in the process of getting the ore from Australia, with which it inked a pact for the same few years back.
Jaduguda uranium mine, India’s deepest operating underground mine, has been operating uninterrupted since 1968. It is nearly 3,000 feet deep. Of its daily production of 5,000 tonnes, UCIL mined 700 tonnes of the ore from Jaduguda.
Although, UCIL has other mines in Bhatin, Narwapahar, Bagjata, Turamdih, Bandhuhurang, Mohuldih in Jharkhand and Tummalapalle in Andhra Pradesh, ore from Jaduguda has high content of uranium. On a stretch of 60 km, there are six mines in and around Jaduguda of which five are underground.
The Jharkhand government stopped mining of uranium from Jaduguda since September 6 this year as UCIL’s lease got over. It had been renewed twice before.
UCIL, a PSU operating under aegis of DAE, mines and processes uranium. The mineral is later sent for the Nuclear Fuel Complex in Hyderabad, where it further converted into pellets for using it as fuel.

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