Uranium One Holding
Since 2008
Russia
Central Federal District of the Russian Federation
Moscow
st. B. Tatarskaya, d. 9
Owners:
Rosatom
Content |
Owners
2024: Contract award for construction of lithium carbonate plant in Bolivia
In September 2024, Uranium One Group JSC (part of Rosatom) and the Bolivian state-owned company YLB signed a contract for the construction of a lithium carbonate plant in Bolivia.
The project of the Russian company provides for the launch of an industrial plant in the second half of 2025 with the subsequent phased expansion of production capacities and the release of up to 14 thousand tons of lithium carbonate per year. The development of the resource potential of the salar is planned using the Russian technology of direct sorption extraction of lithium.
2023: Bolivia Lithium Mining Agreement
Uranium One (U1), part of the state corporation Rosatom, won a tender for the development of a lithium deposit in Bolivia. The press service of Rosatom announced this on June 29, 2023.
Uranium One Group will develop the Pastos Grandes deposit, located in the Potosi department in southwestern Bolivia. For Rosatom, this is the first large-scale foreign project in the field of lithium production, investments in which will amount to about $600 million, said Kirill Komarov, First Deputy General Director, Director of the Rosatom Development and International Business Block. According to him, it is planned to build an industrial complex with a capacity of 25 thousand tons (6% of world production) of lithium carbonate per year with the possibility of increasing it based on the results of geological exploration. The commissioning of the first stage and the start of production of finished products is scheduled for 2024, reaching full capacity (25 thousand tons) - in 2027.
 | The agreement opens up new prospects for long-term cooperation between Russia and Bolivia. For Rosatom, this is the first large-scale foreign project in the field of lithium production, says Komarov. - We share the interest of the Bolivian side in the early introduction of the first stage and the start of production of finished products. In addition, in order to develop this high-tech industry in Bolivia, Rosatom will provide training of qualified personnel. |  |
Russian technology allows you to extract more than 90% of lithium from the salt marsh, said the head of Rosatom Alexei Likhachev. According to him, the technology is "environmentally lean," since chemical compounds are not used in the mining process, and water flows are returned back to salt marshes.
In Bolivia, according to analysts at Vygon Consulting, by mid-2023, about 24% of the world's lithium resources are concentrated, Argentina is in second place (23%), Chile is in third (13%). These countries are in the "lithium triangle," where lithium mining is considered the most profitable.[1]
Rosatom is successfully developing lithium mining technologies in Russia. Pastos Grandes is the first overseas project.
Bolivia's lithium resources are currently estimated at 21 million tons, and the reserves at the Pastos Grandes site are about 500-800 thousand tons. The industrial production of lithium in Bolivia is not carried out at this time, since in order to organize modern production, it is necessary to solve in a complex many non-core tasks related to the development of the region. Multinationals are not interested in this, since the complexity of processes reduces profits.
The Pastos Grandes project is under the personal control of Bolivian President Louis Arce: together with the construction of the Center for Nuclear Research and Technology in El Alto, the emergence of new production in the country could create a positive background for the upcoming presidential elections in 2025.
Rosatom managed to bypass the American company Lilac Solutions, affiliated with Tesla, which also participated in the tender.
In Kaliningrad, it is planned to launch the production of lithium-ion batteries in 2025. 10,000 tons of lithium carbonate per year is required to ensure this production, and supplies from Bolivia are focused on closing this particular need. Lithium production in Russia, with the current state of the industry, can be established no earlier than 2030, so now the Bolivian rare earth metal will be the main source of raw materials for the production of domestic batteries in the next 6-8 years.
Demand for lithium continues to grow so far. As part of the Bolivian project, Uranium One Group will receive not only a long-term profitable contract, but also control over part of a strategic resource that is critical for the development of modern industry.
2022: Re-registration of assets in Kazakhstan
In March 2023, the Government of Kazakhstan allowed the sale of a number of uranium mining assets in Kazakhstan in favor of Uranium One Group JSC - from a number of foreign companies in the group.
As power expert Boris Martsinkevich explained, this will make it impossible to freeze or confiscate assets in Canadian jurisdiction. "Secured from a legal point of view," he explained.
2021: Uranium Energy Corp buys Uranium One's U.S. assets
On November 9, 2021, Uranium One, a member of Rosatom, announced the sale of its assets in the United States to the American corporation Uranium Energy Corp (UEC). The transaction value is about $130 million.
Under the terms of the agreement, the buyer will pay $112 million of his own funds for the American division of Uranium One, as well as pay off his debts for $19 million. The division's assets include seven uranium projects in the Power River Basin and five in the Great Watershed Basin. All of them are in the state of Wyoming in the western United States.
UEC owns assets in Texas, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Paraguay. The purchase would make it the largest uranium producer in the U.S. According to Amira Adnani, President of Uranium Energy, the amount of the transaction represents only 12% of the value of the entire company, but the deal will double the uranium reserves.
Rosatom explained the sale of American business by the Uranium One strategy to optimize the portfolio of uranium mining assets. The source said that the US state corporation's main business is not natural, but enriched uranium.
The moment of sale of the American subsidiary Uranium One was chosen quite successfully, says Sergei Grishunin, managing director of the NRA rating service: the price of uranium by November 2021 is at $45.2 per pound against $29.4 per pound in 2020. At the same time, the deal is beneficial to Rosatom from an economic point of view - Uranium One Americas deposits were not promising, operating activities are unprofitable, the expert added.
For Americans, the presence of a Russian state-owned company in the domestic market was an annoying factor, while Rosatom's asset in the United States does not bring strategic advantages, Grishunin continues. In addition, at the end of 2020, Rosatom extended until 2040 an agreement with the US Department of Commerce to suspend an anti-dumping investigation into uranium supplies from Russia. Under this agreement, import quotas for Russian uranium will gradually decrease from 24% in 2021 to 15% (from market demand) from 2028.[2]
2015-2016
In April 2015, The New York Times, citing Uranium One documents, reported that Uranium One investors donated to the Clinton Charitable Foundation when Rosatom gradually gained control of a Canadian uranium producer during 2009-2013. uranium producer.
In November 2016, confidential emails from the head of Hillary Clinton's election headquarters, John Podesta, were published on the WikiLeaks website. It followed from the documents that the State Department, during the period when it was led by Hillary Clinton, approved the deal to sell Uranium One to Rosatom State Corporation, after which the former owners of the sold company began to generously invest in the Clinton Family Fund. The sensitivity of the situation is that Russia as a result received up to 20% of American uranium stocks.
2013: Rosatom buys Uranium One
In 2013, a contract was signed for the enrichment of American uranium in Russia. True, there was a legal difficulty: the supply of natural uranium from the United States to Russia was prohibited by American laws. Washington officials found a brilliant solution: they organized the purchase by Rosatom of the Canadian company Uranium One, which developed mines in Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Tanzania, and the[3]
As a result, Rosatom has found not only a channel for trade with the United States, bypassing restrictions, but also a huge raw material base.
Notes
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