Australian Uranium Could Boost GDP by A$17 Billion, Group Says

By Angela Macdonald-Smith

March 16 (Bloomberg) -- Australia could add A$17 billion ($11 billion) to Gross Domestic Product by 2030 by maximizing supplies of uranium to meet rising global demand for nuclear- based energy, an industry lobby group said.

Production and exports of uranium could rise to about 37,000 metric tons a year by 2030 from a forecast 14,000 tons in 2014, Michael Angwin, executive director of the Australian Uranium Association, said today in a statement released at a conference in Adelaide.

Australia’s production of uranium oxide is set to rise by 5 percent to 10,583 tons in the year ending June 30, mostly from an expansion at Energy Resources of Australia Ltd.’s Ranger mine in the Northern Territory, the government’s commodities forecaster said this month. Sixty-four nuclear power reactors are expected to be commissioned over the next six years, driven by increased energy security and environmental concerns, it said.

“On our modeling of action to address climate change, including carbon pricing assumptions, even the most conservative of those scenarios sees demand for nuclear energy doubling by 2030,” Angwin said in the statement. “For Australia, with 38 percent of the world’s low-cost uranium resources and 1 percent of current uranium supply, this presents a range of opportunities.”

Australia had GDP of A$1.09 trillion at the end of 2008.

Western Australia state in November scrapped a six-year ban on uranium mining after a new government was elected, while Queensland may end its ban depending on the results of a March 21 state poll. Australia’s three producing mines are in South Australia and the Northern Territory.

South Australia is set to increase uranium output with the start-up of Uranium One Inc.’s Honeymoon project next year, Paul Holloway, the state minister for mineral resources development, said in an address to the conference. At the same time, Sinosteel Corp. and partner PepinNini Minerals Ltd. are working to develop their Crocker Well project, he said in the address, a copy of which was e-mailed to Bloomberg.

To contact the reporter on this story: Angela Macdonald-Smith in Sydney at amacdonaldsm@bloomberg.net