The French nuclear system will be able to diversify its uranium supply

Emmanuel Macron visited Mongolia in May 2023, a first for a French head of state. Then his Mongolian counterpart, Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh, visited him in Paris, in October 2023 then July 2024. Friday January 17, the French public group Orano (formerly Areva) concluded an agreement with the Mongolian company MonAtom to exploit a vast deposit of uranium in the south of this landlocked country between China and Russia – production is expected by 2028 at the earliest.

Here is a contract “historical », in the words of Laurent Saint-Martin, French Minister Delegate for Foreign Trade, who came to Ulaanbaatar for the signing ceremony. Or a planned investment of 1.6 billion dollars (around 1.56 billion euros). The Franco-Mongolian joint venture expects to extract nearly 90,000 tonnes of uranium in total, over an estimated period of thirty years.

What’s at stake for France? Diversify natural uranium supply sources. First extracted from the ground, this raw resource will then be transformed into fuel, notably for EDF nuclear power plants, the main source of French electricity. Without specifying the countries of origin, the national electrician explains that he buys nearly 7,000 tonnes of the ore each year.

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