Australia eyes uranium sales to Indonesia

Australia eyes uranium sales to Indonesia

CANBERRA (Reuter): Australia's new conservative government
said yesterday it was ending 13 years of curbs on uranium
exports, angering environmentalists and a key political party
which said it would seek to block sales in parliament.

The Liberal-National coalition, which won power in March 2
elections, said Australia had to take advantage of its 30 percent
share of the world's uranium reserves and was looking to Asia for
sales of the controversial nuclear fuel.

Resources Minister Warwick Parer said Australia was keen to
sell to Indonesia for its planned nuclear power plants and would
also look to Asian countries like Japan or South Korea who
already have or plan to build nuclear power stations.

"If they (Indonesia) are going to build a nuclear power
station, it's important that Australia is able to tap into that
(uranium) market," Parer told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.

Parer said Australia needed to increase its 10 percent share
of the world market.

"It doesn't make sense that Australia sits on 30 percent of
the world's resources and gets 10 percent of the market while
Canada has 10 percent of the reserves and gets 30 percent of the
market," he added.

The coalition, which ended 13 years of Labor government, said
before the polls it would look at opening new uranium mines but
Parer's comments drew an angry response from the Australian
Democrats.

The party, which with other minor political parties control
the upper house of parliament, said it would renew efforts to ban
uranium exports when parliament resumes next month.

"I will reintroduce a Democrats' private member's bill which
calls for a ban on uranium exports," Democrat environment
spokeswoman Meg Lees said in a statement.

The government's plans to expand uranium mining and exports do
not have to go through parliament but the Democrats hope the
Labor opposition will support their planned legislation to block
mining, the spokeswoman said.

Neither the government nor the opposition holds a majority in
the Senate (upper house). "We won't accept the spurious argument
that Australia should sell it because if we don't, some other
country will," Lees said.

The former Labor government, bowing to the anti-nuclear lobby
of its own left wing, operated a three mine uranium policy, but
currently only two are operating - Energy Resources of Australia
Ltd's Ranger mine in the Northern Territory and WMC Ltd's Olympic
Dam mine in South Australia.

ERA, WMC and CRA Ltd have all said they are considering
opening new uranium mines now the coalition has been elected.

Indonesia's National Atomic Agency said last month it hoped to
start building nuclear power plants within two to three years
with foreign help.

It said a site 440 kilometers east of Jakarta at Mount Muria
in Central Java had been chosen for the first plant, which is
estimated to cost US$2.1 billion.

But environmental critics attacked the plan as dangerous
because the area is earthquake prone and said a recent opinion
poll showed a majority of Indonesians against the planned plant.

Environmentalists here plan to use the April 26 10th
anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster to stage a national
day of action to focus on uranium sales.

Eleven environmentalist groups have written to Prime Minister
John Howard saying increased uranium exports would be a betrayal
of environmental and non-proliferation commitments.