The Malawi government granted Paladin Africa an exclusive mining contract of its 11,000 tons of uranium deposits, which is projected to earn the country about 200 million U.S. dollars every year for the expected 10 year mining life span.
Malawi's uranium deposits are located at Kayelekera, some 52 km west of Karonga district, the country's northernmost town which lies about 600 km north of capital, Lilongwe.
Huxham said the construction phase at the Kayelekera Uranium Project (KUP) is nearing completion, adding that the project is gearing up to start mining and recovery operations.
The Malawi uranium mining project is the second to be developed in Africa in 20 years after the Langer Heinrich of Namibia which came on stream in 2007.Both projects in the two countries have been developed by Paladin Africa.
The fact that KUP is coming on stream in time, on schedule and within budget, is high testimony to the management expertise that Paladin assembled to build the Kayelekera Uranium Project, said Huxham.
He, however, cited a number of challenges that Paladin Africa is encountering in developing the mine, with the most outstanding one being the poor condition of the road by which the project is accessed.
Kayelekera lies along a 100 km earth road that connects Karonga and another country's northern town of Chitipa.
The road is currently being upgraded into a tarmac one.
Huxham said that Paladin is also grappling with Malawi's lack of skilled labor force, adding that the company had to embark on a series of initiatives to up-skill its 2,000 labor force with basics of construction behavior.
Commenting on the support that Paladin Africa is getting from Malawi government, Huxham said that the mining company has received exemplary support from all sectors of the government, citing as most notable the government's initiative to ensure that Malawi's mining regulations are in conformity to global best practice requirements.
The Kayelekera Uranium Project has been hailed by Malawi's President Bingu Wa Mutharika as a major boost to the country's economy once Paladin starts exporting the product to overseas markets.
Mutharika has observed that Malawi is poised to play a critical role in Africa's nuclear energy once it starts mining its uranium and that the country will in the next 10 years become one of Africa's major producers of uranium, an important component in nuclear energy.
Malawi's high-grade sandstone uranium deposits were discovered in the 1980s by a British mining firm, the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB), which showed interest to mine the uranium but later decided against it due to low global uranium prices at the time.
Paladin Africa announced last year that Malawi was set to contribute 1.7 percent of global uranium demand once the country's Kayelekera Uranium Project starts producing uranium oxide in mid 2009.
The company said that Malawi would be producing up to 3.3 million pounds of uranium oxide every year for a period of seven years, which translate into 6,000 megawatts of electricity each year.
Malawi produces 275 megawatts of hydro-powered electricity every year.–Xinhua – Nyasa Times
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