KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) - The Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) would shortly commence a uranium mining and processing plant project at the Kanampalle reserves, in the southern Indian province of Andhra Pradesh.
The project would be completed under the company’s current five-year plan, running until 2017.
The new project, which promises to be among the 20 largest uranium reserves in the world, would have an initial capacity of 6 000 t/d, a company official said.
The Kanampalle reserves were close to UCIL’s Tummalapalle uranium reserves where the company commissioned a 3 000 t/d processing plant last year. The mining project at Tummalapalle was started with initial ore reserves of 14 000 t but had now increased to 60 000 t, and this would be progressively increased with new discoveries.
Commensurately, the processing mill, which has the capacity to handle 3 000 t/d, was being increased to 6 000 t/d and was scheduled for completion this year.
The company had sought $1-billion in funding support from the government to increase the capacities of existing mining projects and construct greenfield extraction and processing units.
Meanwhile, following clearance from the Indian government, UCIL would shortly start on floating a joint venture with the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), which spearheads the country’s nuclear power generation plants, to acquire uranium assets overseas.
UCIL has the sole mandate to supply uranium to nuclear reactors owned and operated by NPCIL, which is, like UCIL, under the control of the Department of Atomic Energy.
India produces 4 680 MW of nuclear power from 19 atomic power plants and targets producing 32 000 MW by 2032.