South Australia’s uranium exports could triple by 2040, Nuclear Royal Commission finds

SA’S uranium exports could triple by 2040 but the overall economic impact of an expansion in the uranium mining sector would not be significant, the royal commission’s findings say. TAKE OUR POLL

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SOUTH Australia’s uranium exports could triple by 2040 but the overall economic impact of an expansion in the uranium mining sector would not be significant, the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission’s findings say.

The Commission’s tentative findings, released today, say that if SA simply maintained its market share of the global uranium supply sector, exports would potentially increase by a factor of three as nuclear energy doubled.

But this would create only several hundred jobs over the next 14 years.

“An increase in uranium mining and milling of this order would add more than $300 million to state GSP (or 0.23 per cent) and enable the employment (direct and indirect) of approximately 800 persons on a full-time basis by 2030,’’ the findings say.

“Growth in the value of the uranium mining industry of 32 per cent by 2029–30 in South Australia would represent significant growth in activity in regional areas.

“However, on an economy-wide basis the impacts on real gross state product … are small and these mask the effect of growth at the industry level.

“Despite this, this would represent a significant increase in activity in regional areas with consequent regional impacts on growth and jobs.

“Even if production could be increased to meet very optimistic demand forecasts under strong climate action policies (such as those forecast by the International Energy Agency), the value of production in South Australia by 2030 and associated royalties, while significant in themselves, are small in terms of the state’s total revenues’’.

The economic impact of an expansion in the uranium mining sector would not be significant, the Royal Commission found.

The Commission found that the uranium price, which is currently below the level at which most Australian mining projects are viable, was unlikely to increase in the short term. Uranium is currently trading at about $US34 per pound, well below a peak of about $US140 per pound before the global financial crisis.

The state is not even producing to its full capacity at the moment, with some projects currently on “care and maintenance’’.

“South Australian uranium production in 2014/15 was valued at about $346.5 million, with associated royalties of $15.9 million.

“South Australia could in the short term return to full capacity production levels of about 5000 tonnes.

“Increasing output beyond those levels would require further investment in new production capacity.’’

There were “good reasons for concluding that new commercial uranium deposits can be found in the state’’.

Commissioner Kevin Scarce said there was likely to be “substantial undiscovered mineral potential’’, and current regulations were adequate for the industry to safely expand.

Australia is home to about 30 per cent of the world’s known uranium resources with 80 per cent of that in SA.

Barriers to the discovery and development of new deposits included:

THE current low price of uranium;

THE duplication of regulation at the state and federal levels;

THE thickness of rock cover in SA;

THE low probability of success in greenfields exploration;

THE absence of drilling data over much of the state; and

THE lack of use of new sensing technologies.

Mining of the alternative nuclear fuel, thorium, was not seen as viable.

The tentative findings, and a guide to how to respond to them, can be viewed online.

The public has five weeks to consider and respond to the findings, with the Commission’s final report due on May 6.