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 The Government of the People's Republic of China () is an authoritarian political system in the People's Republic of China under the exclusive political leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It consists of legislative, executive, mili ...

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 The China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC; ) is a state-owned enterprise founded in 1955 in Beijing. CNNC's president and vice-president are appointed by the Premier of the People's Republic of China. CNNC oversees all aspects of China's c ...

(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 Mamadou Tandja (1938 – 24 November 2020) was a Nigerien politician who was President of Niger from 1999 to 2010. He was President of the National Movement for the Development Society (MNSD) from 1991 to 1999 and unsuccessfully ran as the MNSD ...

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 The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds each ...

, work on the Teguida site was stopped as of August 2007.China firm suspends Niger uranium activities-source
Reuters, 10 July 2007.

References

External links

wise-uranium.org
{{Energy in the People's Republic of China Governmental nuclear organizations Uranium mining companies of China Non-renewable resource companies established in 2006 Chinese companies established in 2006 2006 establishments in China

Operations

See also

References

External links