Major financial difficulties facing SOMAÏR, the operator of the Arlit uranium mine in Niger, have led to the decision to suspend its activities from the end of October.
_87028.jpg)
Uranium ore – calcined (black) and natural yellowcake (Image: Orano/Eric Larrayadieu)
The French company said the financial difficulties which have been facing its 63.4%-owned subsidiary since July 2023 – when then-President of Niger Mohamed Bazoum was deposed in a coup d’état – have continued to grow.
Niger’s border with Benin, through which uranium concentrates produced at Arlit are exported – has remained closed since the events of July 2023. Since the closure of this main supply and export corridor, Orano and SOMAÏR “have made every effort to maintain dialogue with the Nigerien authorities” and implemented “offsetting measures” to ensure industrial facilities and equipment are maintained and to preserve and pay the workforce at the mine while waiting for production to resume at full capacity, Orano said.
“In spite of Orano’s efforts to find alternative possibilities to export the uranium produced by SOMAÏR and to relaunch commercial activities, all the proposals made to the Nigerien authorities have remained unanswered,” the company said.
“Moreover, SOPAMIN, the shareholder representing the State of Niger with a 36.6% stake in SOMAÏR, has not paid any of its debts to the mining company for the past 15 months.
“The major financial difficulties facing SOMAÏR have forced the company to suspend its activities, as an interim measure, as of the end of October. The limited remaining financial resources will be used in priority to pay employees’ salaries and to maintain the industrial facilities until the end of the year.”
Orano said it “deeply deplores the negative impact” of the worsening situation on SOMAÏR’s employees and subcontractors and is concerned about the potential damaging repercussions on the region’s economic, social and societal development.
In an earnings update earlier this year, Orano said production at the Somaïr ore processing plant had resumed during the first quarter, and that ore extraction at the mine had continued, but sales had not been able to resume because of the logistical situation.
Arlit is Orano’s only currently operational uranium mine in Niger. The company is carrying out remediation of the former COMINAK underground uranium mine, where more than 40 years of production came to an end in 2021. Earlier this year it announced that it had started preparatory activities for uranium production at the Imouraren project, where development had been suspended since 2015, but days later the State of Niger had decided to withdraw Imouraren SA’s licence to exploit the deposit, placing it back in the public domain. The government also withdrew Canadian company GoviEx Uranium’s mining rights for the Madouela uranium project.
Like SOMAÏR, COMINAK and Imouraren SA are majority-owned by Orano and partially owned by the state of Niger.