PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Policy reforms are needed for Australia to benefit from growing global uranium demand, a new report commissioned by the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) has found.

The report ‘Realising Australia’s Uranium Potential’ noted that, despite hosting the world’s largest deposits of uranium, the country supplied just over 10% of the global market, down from over 20% a decade ago.

“In terms of global production, Australia has fallen from second to third place, while export earnings have declined from over A$1-billion in 2008/9 to A$622-million in 2013/14,” authors Sinclair Davidson and Ashton de Silva said.

The report pointed out that other producers had gained market share at Australia’s expense, with Kazakhstan’s production share increasing from 9% to 38%. At a time when global production had increased by 67%, Australian output had fallen by 16%.

The upshot was that Australia’s uranium industry could expand from its current state of providing around 3 000 direct and indirect jobs and being valued at A$600-million a year, to a value of over A$9-billion a year and providing over 20 000 direct and indirect jobs by 2040.

Davidson and De Silva noted that expansion potential in Australia’s uranium sector was substantial and based on two key variables - growth in nuclear power generation worldwide and growth in Australia’s share of global uranium production.

However, the report noted that Australia was unlikely to reach its potential as a uranium producer without changes to the current regulatory and policy environment, with the authors urging an improvement to the regulatory environment in order for the country to gain the full economic benefit of Australia’s uranium resources.

Three priority areas for reform were identified in the report, including a lifting of a ban on uranium exploration and mining in certain states, including Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales, as well as easing the additional regulatory obstacles faced by the uranium sector, compared with other mineral commodities.

The third area of reform was clearing regulatory obstacles for the transport of uranium.

The report showed that, in the process of regulatory reform, Australia could reap substantial benefit in jobs and export revenue, particularly, if government policies around the world continued to encourage emissions reduction in energy production. 

Such scenarios could see Australian uranium fuelling as much as 5% of the world’s electricity generation with zero emissions coming out of nuclear reactors.