Green Light for Yellowcake

Tapping a lode worth billions

Buried beneath Australia's remote, forbidding northern wilds is one-fifth of the world's known reserves of uranium, but they have been of no use to atomic-power plants. The government, fearful that mining would damage the Australian environment and that exports might encourage nuclear proliferation, has forbidden exports since 1973. Last week, however, Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser decided to permit mining companies to develop and export the mammoth lode.

Supplies have become so tight that prices--squeezed up by a cartel of producers--rose from $7 a pound in 1972 to around $42 at present. In the U.S., Westinghouse Electric Corp. reneged on long-term contracts to supply utilities with "yellowcake" at fixed prices of $8 to $12 a pound, claiming that it would be ruined if it followed through. Now, utilities in the U.S. and elsewhere are delighted to have a new source of supply. On a loftier plane, Fraser said, "The advent of Australia as a major supplier of uranium will make certain that Australia's voice on this most vital problem of international affairs --nuclear weapons proliferation--will be heard."

The Fraser administration has set the most stringent ecological standards governing safety, waste disposal and environmental protection. But when Fraser showed up at a dinner in Sydney, a mob of 3,000 protesters greeted him, some of them pelting him with bottles.

Four mining companies, led by Ranger, in which the Australian Atomic Energy Commission has a half interest, are geared up to go. At least one mine will be in full production by 1981, with others following in short order. At current world prices, the lode is worth an estimated $35 billion. As one Wall Street analyst, Andrew Racz, of Philips, Appel and Walden Inc., says: "Uranium could be to Australia what oil is to Saudi Arabia."

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