OREANDA-NEWS. The head of Rosatom Sergey Kiriyenko says that the development of Elkon will guarantee stable fuel supplies for the nuclear power industry.

“This is a very big deposit - 370,000 tons, 7% of the world reserves. Elkon alone will give us 5,000 tons a year against just 3,000 tons mined all over Russia at present.”

“At the same time with developing Elkon, we are going to prospect nearby areas. We believe that there are other big deposits in that region: 3-4 points on the eastern slope of Aldan and 2-3 places in the north.”

“A total of 90bln RUR will be allocated for the project: 7.5bln RUR - by the government, the rest - by investors. The controlling interest will be in the hands of the industry with the remaining 49% to be given to the investors. Today, lots of companies would like to deal with uranium,” says Kiriyenko. He notes that, formerly, it was an unprofitable business to develop Elkon as one kilogram of uranium cost $30-40, today, it costs $200.