Uranium Price Slump Could Reverse After 2020 - Rosatom Mining Strategist

Russian ARMZ Uranium Holding company's official Marina Liborakina said that ARMZ, which is the mining arm of Rosatom, is restructuring its extraction processes to improve their ecological aspects alongside many other uranium mining companies that are also seeking to become more eco-friendly and reduce costs.

LONDON (Sputnik) — The current slump in global uranium prices may rebound after 2020 depending on investment in the nuclear power industry, the Russian ARMZ Uranium Holding company's Deputy Director General for Strategy and Business Development Marina Liborakina said Friday.

"Everything depends on the pace of nuclear energy development. The second factor is our largest companies' implementation of uranium investment projects. Currently, all companies are streamlining the production process in terms of both operating costs and asset structure," Liborakina said on the sidelines of the ongoing World Nuclear Association Symposium in London.

ARMZ, which is the mining arm of the Rosatom state-owned nuclear energy corporation, is restructuring its extraction processes to improve their ecological aspects alongside many other uranium mining companies that are also seeking to become more eco-friendly and reduce costs, she added.

"We have closed several mines that extract uranium using in-situ leaching while investing more actively in ecologically clean methods," Liborakina said.

Uranium spot prices collapsed more than 60 percent between from over $70 per pound to around $25 per pound between 2011 and 2016 in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and amid a slump in global commodity prices. Rosatom has previously stressed that in will take several years fort he market to re-balance.