Niger revokes French company's operating permit at major uranium mine

NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — Nigerien military authorities have withdrawn the operating permit for a large uranium mine from the French company Orano, the company said, significantly escalating tensions between the military junta and the country's former colonial power.

Niger, a landlocked country of 26 million, is the world's seventh biggest supplier of uranium, used for the production of weapons and nuclear power. In 2022, the country supplied over a quarter of the uranium used in the European Union, according to the bloc's nuclear energy agency, making it its second-biggest uranium source, after Kazakhstan.

Before the military coup last year, Niger was the West’s major economic and security partner in the Sahel, the vast region south of the Sahara Desert that has become a hot spot for violent extremism. But the military junta which seized power on the pledge of cutting ties with the West vowed to review mining concessions in the country and ordered the withdrawal of Western troops.

The Imouraren mine, located in the northern part of the country, is one of the largest uranium deposits in the world, with reserves estimated at 200,000 tons. Mining activities were supposed to start there in 2015, but production was halted after the crash in uranium prices following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.