
French nuclear giant Orano ended the first half of the year with a loss of €133 million, weighed down by difficulties in its mining activities in Niger due to a “highly degraded” political context since a military regime came to power a year ago.
The coup in Niger on 26 July last year led to a halt in imports of critical materials necessary for uranium exploitation in Orano’s Somaïr mine, such as soda ash, carbonate, nitrates and sulphur.
And although uranium extraction continued in the first quarter of 2024 “after several months of early maintenance,” Somaïr’s sales were unable to resume “due to a lack of logistics solutions approved by the Niger authorities”.
In late June, Niger decided to withdraw the licence of Imouraren SA, a company jointly operated by Orano, Niger Mining and Korea Electric Power, and which ran the Somaïr mine.
The situation could eventually lead to “insolvency in the short to medium term, in the coming months”, Claverie said.
Leave a Reply