Major uranium producer has seen shortages of crucial chemical
Kazakhstan’s national nuclear company Kazatomprom has concluded an agreement on opening a credit line to finance the construction of a sulphuric acid plant – less than a year after it said shortages of the chemical were partly to blame for a cut its 2025 production target.
The credit agreement was signed with the Development Bank of Kazakhstan JSC and Taiqonyr Qyshqyl Zauyty, the partnership company formed to oversee the construction project.
Kazatomprom said the plant, in the Turkestan region in the south of the country, will have a capacity of about 800,000 tonnes per year.
Total investment in the project, which is scheduled for completion in early 2027, will be about $220m (€196m) with loan financing from the Development Bank of Kazakhstan of about $167m.
Last year Kazatomprom, which generates a fifth of global uranium supply, cut its production target for 2025 by 17% to a range of 25,000 to 26,500 tonnes of yellowcake, or triuranium octoxide (U3O8), a type of uranium concentrate powder used to produce fuel for nuclear power reactors.
Kazatomprom said at the time that “the uncertainty around the sulphuric acid supplies for 2025 needs and delays in the construction works at the newly developed deposits resulted in a need to re-evaluate our 2025 plans”.
Sulphuric acid, essential to extracting uranium from deposits, has been in short supply in Kazakhstan because of delays in building new acid plants, competition with the fertiliser industry and trade restrictions.
