Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy company, Rosatom, signed a contract to build and operate a pilot uranium processing plant in a project worth some $1.2 billion. Construction of the pilot processor will begin in the first quarter of 2026 and will test uranium processing technologies for the design of the main processing complex, which will have a production capacity of up to 3,000 tonnes of uranium per year. It is planned that as much as 300,000 tonnes of uranium could be processed over a 20-year period. Tanzania has an estimated 150 million tons of Uranium ore. The project would create 4,000 direct jobs and 100,000 indirect jobs.
“This is a landmark achievement for our country. For the first time, Tanzania is stepping onto the global uranium map with the capacity to supply a strategic mineral that is essential for safe and sustainable energy generation worldwide,” Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan said at the launching ceremony on July 31, according to World Nuclear News.
According to a statement from Tanzania’s Ministry of Minerals, the government holds a 20% stake “projected to earn USD40 million annually in dividends, channelled into national development projects,” and hundreds of direct and indirect jobs would be created.
