Kazatomprom and Japanese Companies Sign More Cooperation Deals in Nuclear Power

Almaty. December 26. Interfax-Kazakhstan - Kazakhstan’s national atomic company Kazatomprom and Kansai Electric Power Co., Nuclear Fuel Industries, Sumitomo Corporation signed four agreements on cooperation in the nuclear energy on Wednesday in Almaty.

The companies signed a memorandum of understating to use capacities of the Ulba Metal Mill, which is a part of Kazatomprom.

Kazatomprom, Kansai Electric Power Co. and Sumitomo Corporation concluded a memorandum of understanding to employ Ulba facilities to process regenerated uranium.

Kazatomprom, Nuclear Fuel Industries and Sumitomo Corporation also signed protocols of intent on processing uranium scrap and producing uranium dioxide powder from hexafluoride.

Sumitomo Corporation General Manager for CIS Yoshihiko Shimazu said that this event "will become a big step in the way of strengthening beneficial cooperation between two countries.”

Kazatomprom head Mukhtar Dzhakishev pointed out to the shortest timeframe within which those documents were prepared for signing. Thus, Kazatomprom needed only two years to enter the Japanese market of nuclear fuel.

"Sighing these documents for the Japanese market means a new supplier of uranium fuel components. If we take into account that Kazatomprom today claims to be one of the top resource supplies in the world, it suggests that a company with big resource possibilities is entering the Japanese nuclear fuel market,” Dzhakishev said.

"The advantage is obvious for Kazakhstan as well, as a huge high-tech Japanese market is opening for us in exchange,” he said.

At the press conference Dzhakishev said that the Kazakh side would commence shipping nuclear fuel components to Japanese market in 2009. The initial annual supply will be about 20-30 tons of products.

"This is not that much for the Japanese market, since the market could be valued at 900 tons of fuel. Though 20 tons is not that much as compared to 900 tons, the issue of increasing supply is much easier to solve than penetrating into this market,” Dzhakishev said.

He reminded that Kazatomprom plans to raise its import share of uranium products to Japan to 30-40%.

Kazatomprom is a wholly new state operator for imports and exports of uranium, one of three leading uranium producers worldwide.