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BEIJING (Reuters) – The abrupt cancellation of a $6.5 billion uranium processing project in southern China has left Beijing with a headache as it tries to secure the fuel required to sustain an ambitious…
>China currently has 15 reactors with an aggregate installed capacity of 12.57 gigawatts (GW), but another 30 plants are under construction and due to go into operation between now and 2016, adding another 29 GW to the total.
Gaining more control over the global fuel supply chain is crucial to China’s plans to increase total nuclear capacity to 58 GW by 2020, and will require not only overseas acquisitions but also more enrichment capacity.
[…]
PROCESSING IMPORTS
While Beijing’s 2020 target for the amount of power to be generated from nuclear sources was scaled back after the Fukushima disaster in Japan, its 2030 target of around 200 GW remained intact. Analysts expect annual primary uranium demand to rise tenfold over the period to around 40,000 tonnes.
To meet that demand, CNNC and CGNPC have been exploring domestic uranium deposits, but a surge in imports is inevitable, and is expected to put pressure on global supplies.<
See on www.reuters.com
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