India-Canada uranium deal and India’s nuclear programme | Explained Premium

Explore the India-Canada uranium deal's impact on India's nuclear program and energy security in this comprehensive analysis.

The story so far: In its quest for energy security, on March 2, India signed a CAD 2.6 billion deal with Canada’s Cameco. The deal ensures a supply of around 10,000 tonnes of uranium between 2027 and 2035 to India.

India has both domestic reserves and imported stockpiles of uranium. The domestic reserves amount to 4.2-4.3 lakh tonnes of ore, spread across the major mines of Jaduguda and Turamdih in Jharkhand and Tummalapalle in Andhra Pradesh. The quantum of extractable uranium metal from the ore is estimated to be 76,000-92,000 tonnes.

The order of magnitude difference between the ore and the metal is because Indian ore is ‘low grade’ (0.02-0.45% concentration). Canada however has high-grade ore (10-100x richer than Indian ore). Cameco is also among the world’s top three largest uranium producers by volume.

India has increasingly relied on imports, which currently meet nearly three-fourths of the civilian requirement. Aside from the Cameco deal, India also finalised a supply agreement with Kazatomprom of Kazakhstan, and has ongoing contracts with Uzbekistan and Russia (both with low- to medium-grade ore). The government is also building a reserve intended to hold five years’ supply of fuel to protect against supply chain shocks.

While importing uranium ore is cheaper than extracting it, it can’t legally be used in nuclear weapons. This is why India also mines ore domestically.

The deal with Cameco comes under the India-Canada Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement (NCA). It was signed in 2010, two years after the Nuclear Suppliers Group issued its ‘clean’ waiver for India, in turn made possible by the 123 nuclear agreement between India and U.S.