The Czech government on Thursday rejected a bid by the Australian company Uran to buy into Europe's only functioning uranium mine. The Rozna mine, whose production makes the Czech Republic the 12th biggest uranium producer in the world, should continue to be exploited by state-owned company Diamo for the forseeable future, said Industry Minister Martin Riman.
Neither of the two offers tabled by the Australian mining company this week to take a stake in Rozna was advantageous for the state, he said after a visit to the mine in the southeast of this central European country.
"We have (uranium) reserves which we can mine without any problems under the current regime," Riman said, referring to known reserves expected to last until around 2012.
Uran offered 640 million koruna (23 million euros, 30 million dollars) to take a 50-percent stake in mining of existing and future reserves at the Rozna mine.
Under a second variant it offered 320 million koruna to take a half share in exploiting just the current known reserves of around 860 tonnes of uranium, Riman said.
The current value of Rozna's mining reserves is in the range of billions of koruna, he said.
The price of uranium has soared due to a revival of interest in nuclear power because of fears over global warming and the stability of fossil fuel supplies.
The minister said he would recommend to the government in late March or early April that Diamo mine the known uranium reserves.
Mining activities are only guaranteed until 2008 under a previous government decision, taken before the nuclear power revival with an eye on the hundreds of jobs at stake in the mine.
Diamo is also expected to launch geological research to determine whether further uranium reserves lie beneath the current 1,150-metre (3,800-foot) deep operations.
Exploitation of deeper reserves would be financially demanding and might require help from an outside investor but this is a question to be put in a few years time, Riman said.
