By Rebecca Keenan
Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Western Australia, the state with as much as 10 percent of the world's known uranium reserves, ended a six-year ban mining the radioactive metal after a new government was elected.
Mining leases will be granted for uranium, State Premier Colin Barnett said today in an e-mailed statement. His Liberal- National government was won power in September, ousting the Labor party that introduced the uranium mining ban in June 2002.
There are 25 known deposits in Western Australia that could produce up to 52,000 metric tons of uranium, he said.
Australia exported 10,139 tons of uranium in 2008 from its three operating mines in the Northern Territory and South Australia, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, a federal government agency.
Australia, the world's second-largest uranium producer, gives states control on whether to mine the metal, used as fuel in nuclear power plants.
To contact the reporter on this story: Rebecca Keenan in Melbourne at rkeenan5@bloomberg.net
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