The China Nuclear International Uranium Corporation (中国国核海外铀资源开发公司) (abbreviated as Sino-U or SinoU) is a Chinese Government owned corporation involved in prospecting, and eventually mining, overseas sources of
uranium
Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...
.
In late 2006, SinoU was spun off from the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), China's state owned nuclear processing, mining, plant operation, and research agency, where it was previously the Overseas Uranium Exploitation Department of the CNNC.
Operations
Its first major contract was to build the Teguida,
Niger
)
, official_languages =
, languages_type = National languagesMamadou Tandja to break the four decade de facto monopoly held by
Areva
Areva S.A. is a French multinational group specializing in nuclear power headquartered in Courbevoie, France. Before its 2016 corporate restructuring, Areva was majority-owned by the French state through the French Alternative Energies and Atom ...
, a French state owned nuclear company, by bringing in Sino-U as a competitor. The ''Financial Times'' described the entry of Sino-U as a "battle for resources" between China and France and illustrated a competition view held by some that saw "China’s pursuit of Africa’s resources as a direct – and potentially destabilising – threat to western interests".
In June 2007, one of SinoU's officials was kidnapped by rebels opposed to the building of the mine, but released shortly after. With the advent of the Second Tuareg Rebellion, work on the Teguida site was stopped as of August 2007.China firm suspends Niger uranium activities-source Reuters, 10 July 2007.