Niger’s military regime has announced it is putting uranium produced by Somair – a subsidiary of French nuclear fuel cycle company Orano before the African nation’s rulers nationalised it in June – on the international market.

The news was announced on state television on 1 December in a report citing comments by the head of the junta, General Abdourahamane Tiani.

Tiani, the report said, had claimed “Niger’s legitimate right to dispose of its natural riches to sell them to whoever wants to buy them, under the rules of the market, in complete independence.”

Last week Orano condemned what it called and “illegal” shipment of uranium that had been stored at the Somair (Société des Mines de l’Aïr) mining site in Arlit, northern Niger.