Russia grows uranium reserves 28,000 tonnes in 2007
MOSCOW. Jan 31 (Interfax) - Russia grew its geological uranium reserves by 28,000 tonnes in 2007, Anatoly Ledovskikh, the chief of the Federal Subsurface Resources Agency (Rosnedra), told a press conference. "The 28,000 tonnes have already been listed with the GKZ [State Reserves Commission]," Ledovskikh said. He said 16 licenses were issued to mine approximately 400,000 tonnes of uranium in 2007. Licenses have still to be allocated for deposits containing 835,000 tonnes. "We have a lot of viable uranium properties, particularly in the Trans-Baikal, Trans-Ural, Chukotka and Kalmykia regions," Ledovskikh said. Rosnedra plans to allocated 1.3 billion rubles for uranium exploration in 2008, compared with 1.086 billion rubles in 2007. The Russian Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom) allocated a further 2 billion rubles. "I haven't seen this year's figures yet, but when I spoke to [Rosatom chief Sergei] Kiriyenko we talked about funding by Rosatom rising to 7 billion-8 billion rubles," he said.
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