Japanese trading house Mitsui and Co said yesterday it planned to jointly develop one of the world's largest uranium mines in Russia to supply Japanese nuclear power plants.
Mitsui and the Russian state-owned nuclear fuel firm Techsnabexport (Tenex) will together spend nearly ?29 billion (US$245 million) to develop the mine, with the aim of beginning production in 2009, a Mitsui spokesman said.
Mitsui hopes to own 25 percent of the Yuzhnaya mine, located in the Sakha Republic in far-eastern Russia.
It will be the first case of a foreign company developing a uranium mine in Russia, said the spokesman, who declined to be named.
Mitsui and Tenex signed a contract on Thursday in Moscow to start feasibility studies as a first step towards deciding on the percentage of exclusive negotiation rights it will take for commercial production, he said.
Mitsui will shoulder about ?706 million for the initial studies on drilling methods and the environmental impact, he said.
The companies believe the mine, which has estimated reserves of more than 250,000 tonnes of uranium, could yield up to 1,000 tonnes a year by 2015.
"If we could obtain 25 percent [of that], the company could supply annually about 250 tonnes of uranium to nuclear power plants in Japan," the spokesman said.
Resource-poor Japan relies on nuclear generation for some 30 percent of its electricity with annual uranium consumption of about 8,700 tonnes a year.
Former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi visited Central Asia in August as part of efforts to establish more diverse energy supplies.
Japan imports nearly all of its oil, mostly from the volatile Middle East including Iran, which is facing possible international sanctions over its nuclear program.
Separately, Japan's trade minister said that a state-designated oil development company could lose part of its stake in a US$2 billion project to develop Iran's Azadegan oil field.
Japan's Inpex Corp has a 75 percent working interest in the project to develop the field. But talks between Inpex and the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) over the project to tap one of the world's largest oil fields have reportedly been stalled because the US has urged Tokyo to freeze the project over Iran's suspected development of nuclear weapons.
"Discussions are currently continuing about the entire framework [of the project]," Trade and Industry Minister Akira Amari told reporters in Tokyo.
When asked if this could include changes to the size of Inpex's stake in the project, Amari replied, "I think that is conceivable."
Amari's comments came in the wake of reports that NIOC managing director Gholam Hussein Nozari had been quoted in Iranian media early yesterday as saying Inpex's stake in the project would be cut to 10 percent.
The two companies signed a contract in 2004 to jointly develop the Azadegan oil field, thought to be one of the largest in the world.
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