Nuclear energy meets 11% of the world’s actual electricity needs. Uranium and thorium are raw materials used in the nuclear energy. The world’s largest uranium producers are Kazakhstan, Canada and Australia. The largest uranium consumer is the United States and it is followed by France and China.
The market price of uranium, which was 60 USD the pound before Fukushima, decreased to 28 USD in 2014. The uranium was the most valued metal of 2015 by the rise of 18% (39 USD) because of the increasing number of nuclear power plants in China and the increasing stocks of US nuclear operators.
Bank of America-Merrill Lynch (BofA-ML) and BMO Capital predicted that uranium will to rise to $ 60 billion by 2018 and the uranium consumption to reach 85,000 tons in 2020.
According to the World Nuclear Association (WNA), 68,000 tons of uranium were consumed world-wide in 2015.
In Turkey, researches have continued until 1990, and a total of 9,200 tons of uranium and 380.000 tons of thorium reserves were found by the Directorate General of Mineral Research and Exploitation (MTA) in 5 locations.
The first uranium mine was opened at the end of 2016 in Yozgat Temrezli, owned by Anatolia Energy (Australia) and URI (USA). It is expected to extract 4,600 tons of uranium over the next 12 years. The total revenue of the mine is estimated at 566 million USD.
