Tanzania has 54m pounds of uranium

DAR ES SALAAM – Tanzania has at least 53,9 million pounds of uranium oxide deposits and expects to start mining some of that by 2011, the east Africa nation’s energy and mineral minister said.

Gold dominates Tanzania’s mining sector – which is Africa’s third largest producer of the precious metal – but there is increasing interest in other metals like uranium and nickel.Minister William Ngeleja said two companies – Mantra Tanzania Limited, a unit of Australia’s Mantra Resources , and Uranex Tanzania Limited, a subsidiary of Australia’s Uranex – hoped to start producing in two years.Mantra Tanzania Limited is expected to start mining uranium by 2012, Uranex Tanzania Limited … expects to start producing the mineral in 2011, h Ngeleja said in a speech to parliament published in local media on Sunday.Mantra is working on a project in south Tanzania, which it says has an inferred mineral resource of 35,9 million pounds of uranium oxide, and Uranex’s project in the centre has an estimated 6,7 million pounds of the oxide.Ngeleja said that the two were among 20 companies licensed to explore for uranium in east Africa’s second largest economy. Tanzania also has diamonds, Tanzanite and coal.The nation is working on a new mining law – after 10 years of review – aiming to increase the sector’s economic contribution, change ownership rules, and increase royalties paid on minerals like gold and diamonds.We hope to bring this law to parliament in October, h Ngeleja said.Mineral exports earned US$1,08 billion in 2008 from US$983 million in the previous year, he said.- Nampa-Reuters