Australia to sell uranium to India

[StormShadow]

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is pushing to overturn a ban on sales of uranium to India, removing a diplomatic thorn between the two countries and potentially opening up a new and growing market for Australian suppliers.

Australia has refused to sell nuclear material to India because it has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but Gillard's ruling Labor party will debate lifting the ban at its conference next month.

"I believe the time has come for the Labor party to change this position. Selling uranium to India will be good for the Australian economy and good for jobs," Gillard told reporters.

Gillard said the policy shift would apply only to India and not open up potential sales to either Israel or Pakistan, as only India had sought and received an exemption from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

"So that puts India in a class of its own," Gillard said. "When you look at other nations, whether it be Pakistan or Israel, they are not in that same class."

The move is set to spark heated debate at the party's December conference, but should easily pass with support from Labor's dominant right faction. The policy does not need to go to parliament for approval, but the conservative opposition also supports uranium sales to India.

Gillard's policy shift comes on the eve of US President Barack Obama's visit to Australia and would bring Australia's uranium policy into line with the United States.

'Discriminatory and flawed'

Washington in 2008 signed a landmark civil nuclear agreement with India over the use of uranium for nuclear energy.

Australia has almost 40 percent of the world's known uranium reserves, but supplies only 19 percent of the world market. It has no nuclear power stations.

India has refused to sign the nuclear NPT, arguing it is discriminatory and flawed in allowing only countries which had tested nuclear weapons before 1967 to legally possess them.

Pakistan, Israel and North Korea are the only other non-signatories to the treaty.

Australia to sell uranium to India ? but ban on Israel stands - Israel News, Ynetnews

 

[Tshering22]

Let them make up their minds. I don't think our Israeli friends need to worry. I am sure their Uranium needs are covered by USA/Canada/NATO alone. Our demand on the other hand due to a huge population is far greater.

Although I wonder whether this is true or not.

 

[Thundersword]

I read reports that Tumapalle(sp?) belt in Andhra was expected to have huge uranium reserves.... if it's true then why depend on other countries???

 

[cyphercide]

I read reports that Tumapalle(sp?) belt in Andhra was expected to have huge uranium reserves.... if it's true then why depend on other countries???

The reasons are more geo-political than actual demand.Armed with Indo-US nuclear deal,India can pretty much get Uranium from anywhere on the planet if not mine her own reserves.The keenness to sign the dotted line specifically with Australia and Japan is primarily to drive home the point(to them)that India is now a major international player and can't be isolated like the others.India more importantly demanded to be treated as an equal vis-a-vie ties Australia and Japan,the export deal is just a bone of contention to the bigger picture.By the looks of it,Australia seems to be conceding.

 

[nForce]

I read reports that Tumapalle(sp?) belt in Andhra was expected to have huge uranium reserves.... if it's true then why depend on other countries???

Why use our own reserves when we can buy from others at economic rates? we can always switch back to our resources if times get tough..

 

[pmukherjee]

We will talk about it when the first shipment from Australia lands on our shores. Till then, I am on snooze mode.

 

[EastWest]

Sydney Morning Herald: Nuclear Apartheid against India must end


AUSTRALIA'S ban on uranium exports to India has exposed a lack of understanding of the subcontinental giant.
When I worked as Fairfax's New Delhi correspondent Indian officials repeatedly raised the issue of uranium exports. It's often referred to in foreign policy circles there as the "U" word.
Why was Australia willing to sell uranium to China and Russia but not the world's biggest democracy, they would ask. No matter what Australian officials came up with to justify the policy, it looked to Indians like discrimination. It was considered a form of "nuclear apartheid".
Australian government ministers would turn up in Delhi and say India was at the "front rank" of our bilateral relationships. But the policy on uranium exports sent a contradictory message - it demonstrated a baffling lack of trust.
From an Indian point of view, the ban also showed an ignorant disregard for India's unique strategic circumstances. To its west is Pakistan, a hostile and unstable nuclear-armed rival. To India's north is the nuclear-armed, emerging super-power China, which invaded India in 1962. Trade ties between India and China are growing rapidly but there are many points of tension in the relationship including the world's longest disputed border. Given these geopolitical realities it's not surprising India has steadfastly refused to sign the non-proliferation treaty.
Unlike Australia, India does not have a powerful ally offering nuclear protection. But Australia's uranium ban seemed to take no notice of these strategic realities. It also ignored the widespread support among Indian voters for the country's military and civil nuclear programs.
The historic India-US civil nuclear deal formalised in 2008 admitted India to international nuclear commerce and made the uranium export ban even more incongruous. Australia has a history of fumbling the nuclear politics in its relations with India.
The Howard government overreacted to India's nuclear weapons test in 1998, putting bilateral relations into deep freeze just as India's economy gained momentum following historic reforms initiated in 1991. The protest may have made sense to Australian ears. But in India, a country that had only recently emerged from hundreds of years of colonial rule, it looked like lecturing from a foreigner.
There's no doubt the uranium ban has cast a shadow on one of Australia's most important bilateral relationships.
Assuming the Prime Minister's plans to drop the ban are successful, Australia will be able to fully engage with India at last.

 

[naumananjum]

the statements giving a fell that if they agreed to sell uranium then it will be at very high cost
India is rich regarding thorium which can be transformed to uranium-233 .. technically they don't need uranium

 

[EastWest]

SMH Opinion: Selling uranium to India is a mature act that banishes hypocrisy

No one likes uranium, but this volatile substance may turn into a political, economic and security trump card for Julia Gillard. By declaring she will fight to overturn Labor's outdated policy of banning uranium sales to India, the Prime Minister is doing the right thing for Australia, and for her party.

Australia's relationship with the world's largest democracy has for years been held to ransom by the ludicrous proposition that selling uranium to China is OK, but selling it to India would be dangerous and wrong. It's this idea itself that is dangerous and wrong. China is a known nuclear proliferator to rogue states via Pakistan; India guards its nuclear knowledge like a mastiff, and is on the side of the angels in the fight against terrorism.

For the benefit of the Greens, let's be clear. This is not about whether Australia sells uranium. It's about whom we sell it to. China proliferates despite having signed the non-proliferation treaty. India abides by the treaty but is not a signatory. Australia rewards a duplicitous one-party state and punishes a democracy that plays by the rules.

Why can't India sign the treaty? Because doing so would require it to abandon its nuclear weapons. Why won't it abandon them? Because with more than a billion people to defend, and unresolved border disputes with China and Pakistan - both nuclear-armed - any Indian government that did so would be rejected by its people.

India's first nuclear test was in 1974. It made no secret of the fact. Delhi then waited a quarter of a century for the five declared nuclear powers - the same five who control the United Nations Security Council - to make good on their promises to get rid of nuclear weapons. They didn't.

Meanwhile, Pakistan, North Korea, Libya, Iran and Israel kept busily working on their undeclared nuclear weapons programs. India's decision to declare itself a nuclear weapons state in 1998 was the logical outcome of unsustainable moral posturing by hypocritical Western powers.

Which brings us to the morality of banning uranium sales to India. As the Resources Minister, Martin Ferguson, has noted in his inimitable style, India needs electricity if it is to bring 400 million people out of poverty. If the Greens have a plan for how it can do this, I'm happy to put them in touch with the relevant ministers in Delhi.

As things stand, there is only one alternative energy source India can use. Sad but true, it's coal. If we deny India uranium, it will simply buy more of the black, climate-changing stuff.

In the absence of a moral leg to stand on, opponents of Gillard's plan - who may yet include elements of the Labor Left - will point out that India can buy its uranium elsewhere. True. It's also true that for as long as Australia refuses to face the economic and moral realities of this issue, our political relationship with India - the world's largest democracy, one of its largest economies and an important security player in our region - will remain stalled.

To what end? The economic, moral and environmental case for lifting the ineffectual and discriminatory ban is overwhelming. Politically, too, there is good reason for Labor to take a stand. More than any other issue, it exposes the hypocrisy and moral confusion of Bob Brown's politics.

It's not good enough for the Greens to pretend they know what's best for India. Despite facing challenges on an unimaginable scale, India has managed to make many difficult decisions in the past. They can live without our self-deluded posturing. Moreover, Labor doesn't need Greens support to get this through Parliament. Dropping the ban is Coalition policy. Even Tony Abbott cannot afford to say no.

Some on the Labor Left will argue privately that dropping the ban will cause more Labor voters to defect to the Greens. But Gillard has bigger fish to fry. If she is to win a second term, it will only be by building a reputation as a leader with the guts to take on difficult, sometimes unpopular, causes in the best interests of the nation.

 

[nForce]

the statements giving a fell that if they agreed to sell uranium then it will be at very high cost
India is rich regarding thorium which can be transformed to uranium-233 .. technically they don't need uranium

we come back to the same old question no?

Two points:

1.the resource is precious.It is difficult to enrich Uranium in India,as the ores are not of that good quality in comparison to the Australian one.

2.Uranium based reactors is a proven technology and we are running many such reactors.We have a huge demand for power which is clean.So while we are investing heavily on renewable sources like wind and hydro-electricity,we need nuclear power as well.So we will be needing more nuclear reactors and that too rather fast.So we will have to go ahead with existing technology.Till now,only one Thorium enrichment facility is functional and it is still in experimental stage.It will probably take years to mature.Till then,we need Uranium sources.We have Kazakhstan,Russia,Uzbekistan and some African countries selling us Uranium,but its Australia which has the largest deposits of Uranium in the World with the nest quality ores.

 

[5ever]

^ To the above posters,

The reason why Australia is so highly sought after for Uranium fuel, is not only the quality/purity of the ores, but our processing facilities, land transporation and port infrastructure that's geared around the export of mined goods. India will get high quality ore, mined cheaply, with all deadlines met. Can that be said for the CAR nations who are currently supplying Uranium to India? I think not.

 

[agentperry]

internationally or domestically, fund the political party which is in power to get benefits, it applies everywhere in democratic world.

 

[ptltejas]

When attacks on Indians done they favour their country, In cases of their own benifit they ask to sale uranium. The move might be USA run. The International Politics is not the as simple as we think. Might USA ask to Australia for different purposes.
1) Australia is more near with china than India. Both sport lover countries as well as china is more mature than Indian Politicians and their policies.
2) All the information regarding the nuclear fuel supply be in knowledge of USA.
3) Any dispute will also stop the USA supporter countries for their decisions. At time of nuclear blast all countries including USA friends made economic ban.
4) India not purchase fuel or less purchase from the Russia and France, which could make grievance especially to Russia, who even do not like Indi-US nuke deal and believe huge loss of money in $$$.

on other hand relationship with aussi may be improved. however France, Rus were the supporter during nuke test........