With its recent suspension of uranium mining license for the French nuclear fuel producer, Orano, the Nigerièn government appears to have commenced its much touted goal of reviewing all agreements that do not meet its terms of engagement in the country’s mining sector.
When the military seized power in 2023, it made a pledge to cut ties with the West and vowed to review mining concessions in the country and ordered the withdrawal of Western troops. It has since taken steps that has transformed the country from being one of the West’s major economic and security partners in the Sahel into an adversary.
A threat to revoke the uranium mining licence of Canadian firm, GoviEx, if it does not speed up development of its proposed $343m Madaouela uranium project has seen accelerated discussions with the government regarding the start of mining operations by that company.
The reasons for these decisions, regional political observers say, are not farfetched. The record of fifty years of uranium mining in Niger by Orano is illustrative of how unfair France has been in its trade negotiations with Niger.
Niger exported uranium worth €3.5 billion ($3.8 billion) to France in 2010 but received only €459 million in return. By 2022, Niger had exported more than 256,000 metric tons of uranium, worth about 41 billion US dollars at a price of 57.85 dollars per pound (as of 21 Aug 2023).
However, experts in the sector say Niger got practically nothing of this, because the country received only a fraction of the value from the uranium it mined.
Orano’s sales have consistently far exceeded Niger’s GDP, with the country only benefiting from around 12% of the market value of the uranium produced, scoring the worst human development indicators in the fields of health, education, malnutrition and infant mortality.
Niger is reportedly demanding that the royalties Orano’s mines pay increase from 5.5% to 12%, bringing them closer to the 13% the company pays in Canada and the 18.5% paid in Kazakhstan.
Niger is the 7th largest producer of Uranium in the world, and yet the majority of its uranium mines are owned & operated by French companies. The Imouraren mine, which Orano operated, located in the northern part of the country, is one of the largest uranium deposits in the world, with reserves estimated at 200,000 tons.
The social indices in the country also do not correspond with its reputation as a Uranium-rich country. Uranium from Niger produces 40% of France’s electricity while only 14.3% of the people of Niger have access to electricity. Niger has one of the lowest consumptions of electricity in the world, and even those with a connection suffer from frequent blackouts.
Over the past 40 years, an estimated 270 billion litters (over 6 billion litters a year) of Niger’s scarce water supply, is used in the extraction of Uranium from Niger, leaving local farmers and cattle herders to fight each other over diminishing fresh water supply.
The waste from the Uranium refined in France is then shipped back to the continent of Africa. Over the past 40 years, 45 million tonnes of radioactive waste has been dumped in Niger, mostly on the land of the Tuareg people, leaving them with some of the highest rates of cancer globally, several reports have French.
These social distortions are further exasperated by the political dominance imposed by France, even after Niger attained its independence in 1960. Hamani Diori, the first president of Niger, had set out to fix a reasonable price for uranium. He threatened to denounce the French government at the United Nations if they didn’t comply.
Diori set about pushing for further concessions from France and a significant stake in the mining companies Somaïr and Cominak.
He also requested the establishment of a new special investment fund. France conceded to some extent, but Diori’s pressure for a better deal continued through the years, partly driven by the fact that, by the early 70s, Niger had still not received any dividends from its uranium.
Nigerièn political historians believe these demands led to his removal in a coup orchestrated by pro-French elements in the army days before discussions were to take place.
Such a step is still being anticipated by pundits who say France would go to any length to maintain its control over such vast resources.
However, even as Orano has insisted that it is “prepared to keep open all channels of communication with the Niger authorities on this subject, while reserving the right to contest the decision to withdraw the mining licence in the national or international courts”, the Nigerièn military regime seems set on its course to set a new paradigm in the country’s relations with Western powers.
