150 Cogema/Cie generale des matieres nucleaires See current profile on Cogema.
Created in 1976, from the Production Division of the French Atomic Energy Agency (CEA), Cogema is now not only the world's biggest single supplier of uranium, but the only company on planet earth which offers every single stage of the nuclear process, from mining to spent fuel reprocessing (1, 2). It is the world's leader in handling and reprocessing spent nuclear fuels (3). While it does not actually build nuclear power stations, it has a strong nuclear engineering wing. While it is not known to construct nuclear missiles, its expertise is essential to the French nuclear bomb programme. For Cogema presides over both the military and "civil" aspects of France's nuclear state: the company's reprocessing facilities at Marcoule are used for both military and nonmilitary work (4).
Cogema's importance as the world's leader in supplying electricity services across the whole nuclear fuel cycle can be gauged from the fact that, in mid-1986, it was servicing around 130 of the western world's operating reactors, with an installed capacity of more than 90 gigawatts: this is almost half the global total of approximately 200 GW (2). In the year 1985-86 alone, it added another 15 reactor clients to its books (5).
In addition, Cogema has access to around 7500 tonnes a year of uranium in concentrates, the majority of which it supplies to Elecricite de France (EDF) and the French weapons programme, and a further quarter of which is shipped to foreign customers (2, 6). Although, as the uranium price began to fall in the early 1980s, the company cut back on its production slightly (2,500 tonnes domestic production in 1984 reduced to 2,450 tonnes the following year; 5,600 tonnes from overseas mines in 1984, falling to 5,250 tonnes in 1985) (7), Cogema, with an assured home/government market, has been less affected by market prices than most other major suppliers. With its acquisition of CFM/Mokta in 1985, and expectations that its very high-grade deposit in northern Saskatchew and will proceed to production in the 1990s, the company's future - barring another Tchernobyl on its own doorstep - is likely to be rosy for some time to come.
Cogema employs some 15,000 people in France and abroad (2). It converts uranium into UF6 at the Malvesi and Pierrelatte plants operated by Comurhex. Pierrelatte is also the site of an enrichment plant using gaseous diffusion, completed in 1967. At Tricastin, Cogema is the main partner in the Eurodif consortium - along with Belgian, Spanish, Italian and Iranian co-partners - in what is the largest enrichment plant in the world. This plant started up in 1979, reaching design capacity three years later, and in theory could supply some one hundred 900MW light water reactors (2).
However, by 1984 it was only operating at half its projected output (8). The Pierrelatte military enrichment plant was also closed in 1984 for five months - the first time in seventeen years of operation - to cut electricity costs; the low and medium enrichment part of the plant had already been shut down two years before (9).
At Tricastin, too, Cogema has a defluoration facility, used to convert depleted UF6 into oxide products for long-term storage.
On August 25th 1984, a French cargo ship sank in the English Channel, after colliding with a West German car ferry. The Mont-Luis was travelling to the Soviet port of Riga, after leaving Le Havre. Thirty drums of radioactive material plunged to the bottom of the sea. After many contradictory statements were issued, and appallingly misinformed news reports circulated (for example that the consignments were enriched or reprocessed uranium), it was revealed that the majority of this cargo was owned by Cogema, and consisted of UF6 destined for enrichment in the USSR, to be returned to France and Belgium (10). Apart from the dangers of ocean contamination - especially from three out of the 30 barrels, which appear to have contained various fission products, including plutonium - this incident served to reveal further aspects of the uncontrolled nuclear trade, of which Europe is the dead-centre. For example, Greenpeace Ltd revealed at the time that uranium mined in Canada, no doubt partly by Cogema, is enriched in the USSR, made into fuel rods in the USA, sent to West German reactors, the used fuel reprocessed at Cogema's Cap La Hague plant, and plutonium extracted after reprocessing, sent to the USA, no doubt for use in nuclear weapons (11). The London Guardian also revealed that shipments of UF6 which go on a regular basis to the Eurodif plant and the Urenco plant at Almelo (Netherlands) return afterwards via Sealink, the British ferry-line, for fuel assemblage (12).
Cogema is involved in fuel fabrication through a number of companies, notably SCN which provides asemblies for gas-cooled reactors and also produces artificial industrial diamonds (2), and Fragema, which designs and builds light-water reactor fuel assemblies (2). Along with Pechiney and Framatome, Cogema operates FBFC, which runs three fuel fabrication plants - at Dessel, Belgium, and Romans in France, a well as at Pierrelatte - Tricastin. Commox is a joint Cogema-Belgonucleaire venture to make and sell MOX fuel rods, and recycle plutonium, due to enter production in 1990 (2).
In addition, Transnucleaire (Paris), in which Cogema holds 24%, is responsible for a large part of nuclear transportation in Europe; it was the parent body Transnuklear (TN), that was involved in bribery and corruption and the illegal transport of high-level fission products between Belgium and West Germany, whose revelation precipitated the Nukem scandal of 1988 (13).
Cogema's computer services company CISI is accounted "increasingly commercially aggressive" and itself owns the US Wharton Economics forecasting concern.
Through Minersa, and with BRGM and the Malian government, Cogema established a consortium to investigate the diamond deposit at Kenieba in 1979 (14). Its gold interests have also expanded in recent years; the company's Pathfinder Gold Corp subsidiary in the USA has acquired a 30% interest in the Jamestown gold mine, California; it is also exploring in Spain (between Madrid and the Portuguese border), Ecuador (15) and Australia (7). The company's gold explorations in central France received a boost in 1988, when it took over Penarroya's gold interests in an area which Cogema has exploited only too well Limousin (16) (see below).
Cogema was also one of several multinationals prospecting in the region of the proposed Mazaruni dam, on Akawaio (Indian) land in Guyana, during the early 1980s (88).
In Zaire, in 1981, Cogema headed the SMTF consortium, to investigate the Tenke-Fungurame copper deposits in Shaba province along with Anglo-Charter Consolidated, Mitsui and others (17, 31).
Cogema has also dabbled in coal - as a partner in the Bridge Oil JV in Australia (18); although a link-up with Denison in Canada, discussed in 1982 (19), seems not to have been realised.
Another Cogema "diversification" venture fell on stony ground in 1988, when the company lost US$44.2 million in investments in the futures market, thanks to fraud (so Cogema claimed) by a subsidiary of its stockbrockers, Buisson (20).
Since 1974 and the oil price rise, the French state has enormously increased its reliance on nuclear-generated electricity - from only 8% in 1973, to 23% in 1983, and 66% just two years later. The intention, confirmed when Mitterand came to power in 1981 (21), was to increase the country's dependence on nuclear power to 75% by 1990 (2).
Exploitation of domestic uranium has been a crucial part of this galloping nuclearisation, and it is Cogema which - to quote the Financial Times of London - provides "... the centrepiece of the ambitious ... programme" (22).
In 1986, Cogema's three domestic mining divisions, at Vendee, Herault, and - most importantly - at La Crouzille, had a combined capacity of 3,050 tonnes a year of uranium in concentrates (2).
Cogema held by then 85% of the country's uranium reserves and operated no fewer than 53 exploration projects, covering an area of 4,600 square kilometres (2); in 1980, this was the third largest such programme after the USA and Canada (23).
It was forty years earlier that uranium exploration commenced in France, and the La Crouzille deposits were located (24). By 1955, the Limousin, Forez, Vendee and Morvan deposits had been discovered (24). Within ten years, domestic production reached 1600 tons of U3O8 a year (25). In 1975 it had increased to 2,080 tons U3O8, with a capacity of 2,300 tons (25). The following year, the French government stepped up financial inducements to exploration (US$4.3-US$6.5 million), and by 1978 production was nearly 2000 tonnes (25), with five processing plants in operation, of which Cogema (and Cogema through its subsidiary Simo), operated four (at Bessines, Escarpiere, St Priest, and Langogne) (25). The St Priest plant closed in 1981, to be used as a waste dump (26), and Cogema/Simo opened up a new one at Lodeve (Herault).
Uranium concentrate production increased to nearly 3000 tons in 1982 (2,859 tons), and passed the three thousand mark the following year (3,271 tons). By this time, Cogema was accounting for 2495 tons of the output, and exploring in a sizeable programme (FF250 million) in the Armoricaine and Massif Central regions (27).
Of the 8,560 workers employed by Cogema in France at that time, 3,000 worked in the mines, and the remaining five thousand in processing, enrichment and fuel fabrication (28).
Uranium in France derives from a fairly large number of small mines in several key areas. Without a detailed map to hand, or a more than touristique knowledge of central France, it is easy to confuse the mines (as this author has often done!). The following accounts summarise what is generally known about Cogema's operations in its three divisions.
By 1980, some 10% of the Limousin region had been put under uranium exploitation: with thirty mines opened since 1949, covering some 300 square kilometres, the area of the Haute-Vienne in particular has taken on (as researcher Dave van Ooyen so aptly put it) "the form of a Gruyere cheese" (21). La Crouzille - Haute Vienne - Limoges
Total underground workings stretch one hundred kilometres. In 1982, out of a total of eleven working mines, there were two working openpits, at Vanacht and La Fraisse; a third, at Magnac, had been the subject of a bomb attack in 1973. Cogema's own exploration permits at the time totalled 360 square kilometres.
Between 1949 and the opening of the Henriette mine, around 20,000 tons of uranium came out of this patchwork of mines. "Rehabilitation" of the workings, once exhausted, is minimal. One of the few mines, observed by van Ooyen, to be officially rehabilitated is the Chanteloube, near the Paris-Limoges main road (N20), which closed in 1979 after producing 270 tons of yellowcake. Out of 2,700,000 tons of ore, the vast majority (2,400,000) has simply been left by the roadside - on which a recreation park has been built (21), including six windmills as an energy exhibit (29)! By 1986, the La Crouzille mining division held 23 mining and exploration permits (a slight increase on 1982) (2). The exploration and exploitation area had also increased to more than 800 square km (813 square km) within a radius of about 20km from the Bessines concentrator operated by Simo 35km north of Limousin (2, 22). Four of the mines in the division - at Fanay Belezane, Margnac, Le Fraisse-les Gorces - account for two-thirds of production.
With a workforce of 1,150, Cogema's operations dominate the district and have profoundly affected the local economy. Although one worker was quoted (quite understandably) in 1983 as saying "The mines keep the local economy going - sub-contractors, and shops and small businesses" (22), Dave van Ooyen's own research and observations in the area at around this time confirmed that the region was being drained of people, though it was difficult to conclude that uranium mining was primarily to blame (21).
In La Crouzille, tourists can find a Uranium Service Station, as well as an Hotel Restaurant Uranium (21). In Limoges, they can sup water taken from the three lakes where Cogema dumps its tailings - though local people are forbidden to piss there (29)! If they are "sporty" types, they can fish in the Gartempe, which has been "badly polluted by sulphuric acid" from the Bessines concentrator (29). The Haute-Vienne is a centre for tourism, with no fewer than 17 camping sites (as of 1982), within the mining concession area, served by water from there (30).
At Razes, too, Cogema has sited CIPRA - a training centre for foreign prospectors and technicians (21).
The Vendee division of Cogema - with a concentrator at L'Escarpiere (25) - has been active for more than 30 years (31), with reserves at more than 25,000 tons uranium, and production (by 1985) of some 10,000 tons (31). Most of the uranium lies south-east of Nantes, though some occurrences are found near St Nazaire. The uranium zone extends over 200km along the Massif Armoricaine, and covers the departements of Loire-Atlantique, Maine-et-Loire, Vendee and Deux-Sevres, with principal underground mines at L'Escarpiere, le Chardon, la Commanderie (32) and Piriac. Surface mines are at Roussay. By the mid-'80s, this division was providing around one-fifth of France's production and 10% of its domestic needs (31). Vendee - Loire-Atlantique - Deux-Sevres
More recently there has been investigation of underground deposits in granite below 300 metres (2).
This division employs some 400 people, and in 1985 produced 945 tonnes of uranium in concentrates (2). Initial reserves in the Herault area were estimated at 16,000 tonnes with an assay reaching 4kg/tonne uranium, mostly underground. Surface reserves are nearing depletion, although in 1986 Cogema expected to define sufficient underground reserves to continue production for at least another ten years (2). Uranium was first discovered by CEA geologists in 1957, but a decision to develop was not made until OPEC began organising the oil cartel in the early 1970s (2). Herault - Lodeve
The Herault ore is processed at Simo's Lodeve concentrator (33).
Although there is a general impression that French uranium production proceeds with little domestic opposition, there have been notable acts of resistance over the past few years.
In 1981, more than half those who voted for the ecologist Presidential candidate, Brice LaLonde, came from Haute-Vienne where several local organisations - notably Amis de la Terre, Federation Limousin d'Etude et de Protection de la Nature (FLEPRA), the Association Protection d'Monts Ambazac (APMA), the Association du Mouvement de Grandmont, and CLAN - have been active since the 1970s. The Grandmont group in 1981 blockaded uranium transports coming through their commune, until the barriers were removed by police (21). At Limousin in 1980, CLAN campaigned against Cogema's test drilling outside Petits Vaux (Auriat) - drilling which might either have been for a dump for waste from La Hague, or for uranium (34).
Villagers in Herault started resisting uranium mining in 1980, especially around the St Jean de la Blaquiere mine. In May 1984, blockades were established to prevent Cogema (illegally) gaining access to a strip of land the company had purchased from a farmer. The company broke through the barriers, and managed to commence drilling. A week later, the blockade resumed - involving some sixty people with tractors. The police dispersed the demonstrators using teargas (35), and some 300 workers belonging to the CGT (communist plo-uranium mining) union, invaded the land. As a French non-violence paper declared at the time "CGT - Cogema- CRS [the French "terrorist" police squad] - "meme combat" (36).
Other examples of local resistance have come from the Ardeche where Friends of the Earth (Amis de la Terre) campaigned in the early 1980s against research permits granted at Creyseilles, Montselques, and Gravieres (34), and at Glomel, Brittany, where 700 people, mostly local farmers, started a petition against mining, addressed to the local government, and signed by more than 1800 people (37).
But the most remarkable of Cogema's uranium interests are those centred on Canada, where the company has managed to obtain key stakes in two of the most promising uranium mines ever proposed: Cigar Lake, and Close Lake. Its important 38% stake in Cluff Lake (see Amok) meant that it received an equal share - with an un-named German utility - of uranium from Phase One of the mine (38).
The Cigar Lake Mining Corporation was formed in May 1985 by SMDC, Cogema and other companies (Cogema Canada, 32.625%, and a Cogema subsidiary Corona Grande, 3.75%), by which time its fabulous reserves were estimated at 110,000 tons, with an average grade of 12-14% uranium, and 40,000 tons with an average grade of 4% (14). A revised estimate a year later earmarked some 385 million pounds of U3O8 at an average grade of 9% (15). Sections of uranium mineralisation on the prospect have reached the highest consistent grade ever recorded, - up to 37.7% U308, though "pockets" as high as 60% have also been recorded (40). In 1985, the chair of Cogema, Francois de Wissocq, reasonably dubbed Cigar Lake Cogema's "mine for the nineties", predicting that it would come on stream at a time when prices would be rising (41). At the time of writing, Close Lake is a prospect which is still yielding drilling results - though they are very encouraging: with grades of up to 12% U3O8 (42). Cogema Canada Ltd discovered and operates this prospect, holding 41.6% of a JV in which other partners are Imperial Metals Corp, Uranerz Exploration and Mining, Geomex Minerals Inc, and the SMDC (43).
In late 1986, Cogema submitted a proposal to the Saskatchewan DoE (Department of the Environment) for a US$50 million underground exploration programme at Close Lake, conjecturing that the deep shaft could be ready by 1988 and testing underway the following year (15). By 1989, environmental approval for this phase had not yet been granted.
Through Seru Nucleaire (now Cogema Canada), the company has also prospected in the past with Eldorado and SDJB (25).
It is important to note that, although Canada has had a long standing theoretical opposition to supplying uranium which might end up in nuclear weapons, thanks to the involvement of Cogema and CFM/Mokta (now, as mentioned, controlled by Cogema) in the Canadian uranium industry, uranium has been regularly exported to France, where it could end up in the Super-Phenix Fast Breeder Reactor and thence nuclear weapons (44). Cogema has an office in Montreal which appears to handle this trade: the Montreal Uranium Committee has mounted actions against this export (45).
In Gabon, Cogema's prime interest is in Comuf, a company producing an average of 1500 tonnes uranium a year, about 75% of which is from underground mines: 1985 production was just under 1000 tonnes (940t) (2). Cogema, through its new holding of Mokta, also has a 17% interest in Comilog, the country's major manganese producer which is one of the world's biggest providers of this mineral (46). Comuf works four deposits in Gabon - at Oklo, Boyindzi, Mikoulougou, and Okelo Bonga. The vast majority of their output (some 68%) goes to Cogema through its subsidiary Coginter (the remainder being marketed in Belgium and Japan by Uranen) (15).
From the early 1980s Cogema, joined in a consortium with the Gabonese government and PNC of Japan, has been involved in extensive exploration of the Bakoue region (46). Another consortium was founded in 1980 between the Gabonese government (Nord Leyou Gabon), Cogema and Kepco of South Korea, to explore the Latourville region, north of the original Mounana deposit (46, 47). Yet a third exploration agreement was signed in 1985, between the government and a consortium grouping Cogema, Comuf and UG of West Germany, to explore the Haut-Ogoue region with a budget of up to FrCFA 20 million. At the same time a JV between Mokta and Comuf began drilling in the Franceville, Akieni and Koula-Moutou regions (48).
According to Thomas Neff, because of the very large role Cogema plays in Gabon, "...it is appropriate to regard Gabon's uranium activities as essentially part of the French system" (38). This was particularly true before 1978; when the yellowcake plant commenced production at Mounana - previously all concentrate had been shipped to France. In the past few years, Cogema has reduced its demands on Comuf and, according to Neff, "sought to hold production down," despite a government policy of promoting production in order to maximise revenue.
Cogema's other main source of African uranium is Niger, a country whose economy continues to be dominated by uranium, and whose uranium industry continues to be dominated by French interests, primarily those of Cogema (notwithstanding reductions made in Cogema's share of Somair, under pressure from the Kountche regime in 1975 (38); Cogema also sold part of its initial share in the other major prospect at Aouta to Enusa.
Cogema has consistently taken more of the share of uranium production from the two mines than its shareholding would indicate, although Cogema during the 1980s - as in Gabon - has been trying to reduce its dependence on African resources (38). Total sales of uranium from Niger for delivery between 1983 and 1990 amount to some 33,000 tons, of which Cogema and other French recipients were due to receive around 21,000 tons (15). In addition, both in 1981 and 1982, France purchased additional tonnages from the Onarem stockpile, viewing it as "aid" rather than a commercial transaction (38).
Cogema is involved in other uranium exploration in Niger (49), including Afasto-Ouest and Akborun-Azelik - the former explored by Cogema in equal (37.5%) partnership with Onarem (15).
However, only two ventures have any realistic chance of development: Arni and Imouraren. The Arni deposit was delineated by thorough drilling in the late 1970s by SMTT (Ste Miniere de Tasa N'Taghalgue), established by Cogema and Onarem a 50/50 basis (15, 38). Initial plans were to start production from this deposit in 1985, with full capacity in 1986 (50). Production was deferred and it looks unlikely that this deposit will proceed to commercial exploration in the near future. In 1981, after Cogema began searching for a third partner at Arni (51), the Kuwait Foreign Trade and Contracting Co joined SMTT as an equal partner (15).
The Imouraren deposit is much larger than Arni, but original plans to develop it have been shelved indefinitely (15). Cogema and Conoco originally held 35% each in this project, with Onarem holding 30% (38). After seeking a buyer for its share (52), Cogema disposed of its holding to the other partners soon afterwards.
Cogema's other exploration in Africa can be outlined as follows: in Senegambia, where exploration started in the 1950s in Senegal's oriental region with no tangible results (53), several areas continue to be examined, the most promising being at Saraya (15).
In Mali, the company is prospecting at Kenieba, Taoudeni and Hoboro-Douentza (15), and was formerly exploring with PNC of Japan (qv).
Exploration in Mauretania, where Cogema held 10% of two prospects with Minatome, was suspended in 1982 when the war in the Western Sahara forced it to a halt (54).
Cogema and Alusuisse formed URCA in the Central African Republic "to consider developing some 17,000 tons of [uranium] reserves" (14). Due to "infrastructural problems" and depressed prices (15), the project has lain dormant for some time (14).
Although most of Zambian uranium exploration - fairly extensive as it is - has been in the hands of PNC of Japan and Agip of Italy, Cogema joined with Saarberg Interplan and Agip in 1980 to prospect the Gwembe area in the south of the country (55) - a project which was announced as extending to the western province, in 1981 (56). Exploration was continuing in the mid-'80s (31). In 1981, the French and Moroccan governments announced an agreement under which Cogema would provide the north African despot, Hassan II, with a plant for the extraction of uranium from the country's huge phosphate resources (increased considerably after the country's invasion of the Western Sahara) (57).
However, in 1984 New Scientist reported that Westinghouse was "first in line" to build the Moroccan plant, and meanwhile, although Sofratome and Framatome had won main contracts to provide a nuclear centre and power reactor to the regime - the British government was also cooperating (58).
In 1978, Cogema signed an exploration agreement with the government of Guinee, along with its familiar partners in Africa, PNC and Agip (59), and it has also (inevitably) explored in Algeria (24).
In 1977, the French government, through the CEA, secured an agreement with South Africa, under which Randfontein Estates (JCI) would supply a major part of France's uranium needs in return for help in financing major gold and uranium development programmes. A later report - no doubt inspired by Cogema, at a time when South African imports were coming under close scrutiny - suggests that Cogema's Randfontein contract, for between 900 and 1,000 tons a year, was actually signed in the early, rather than late, 1970s (60). In any event, it does seem that uranium imports were falling off by the early 1980s (41), although Cogema's claims that it was "in no way dependant" on South African supplies, alongside its protestation that "the contract was a strictly commercial affair and we will honour it" (60), seem tinged with hypocrisy.
In early 1988, a Green MP from Luxembourg, Jup Weber, was leaked documents from Nulux, a subsidiary of Nukem of West Germany, showing that EDF - the huge French electricity utility which receives the vast majority of its uranium from Cogema (9) - had drafted a contract for the delivery of 3745.5 tonnes of uranium hexafluoride to an un-named party which, it was later revealed (61), was South Africa itself. Nulux - 30% owned by RTZ Mineral Services - initially signed the deal, and there are some grounds for believing that the uranium concentrate might (at least partly) have been contracted from Rossing or Palabora mines. However, the conversion work for the uranium under this contract, covering 1980 to 1993, was to be undertaken by Cogema's Comurhex subsidiary (62) and, since Nulux withdrew before it was implemented, it is likely that Cogema would have provided the uranium instead of Nulux (63).
Comurhex has also long been involved in handling uranium from Namibia, although Cogema has no known direct interests in the formerly South African-occupied country. As long ago as 1980, a Comurhex official agreed that Namibian uranium was being mixed with other source material at the Malvesi conversion plant - this in response to a request from Sweden that nuclear fuel received by the Scandinavians should be clearly "identified" (64). Again, as one of the spin-offs of the Nukem scandal which broke in 1988, antinuclear activists in Europe and Britain revealed that Comurhex was involved in complex "swapping" arrangements whereby the origin of uranium consignments have been concealed or illegally altered. In particular, Comurhex was at the centre of a "swap" of South African- or Namibian-origin uranium due to enter Liverpool docks, England, in 1988, when it apparently expressed willingness to provide a document showing that the yellowcake came from Canada, rather than the apartheid state (65). Shortly afterwards, Jup Weber, the Luxembourg Green MP, discovered documents implicating Comurhex in a similar title "swap" (66).
Elsewhere in the world, it is worth noting that Cogema has, since 1969, been exploring for uranium in Indonesia, under the auspices of its subsidiary GAM. "Favourable prospects" in Kalimantan and Sumatra were claimed by 1978 (67). Those in West Kalimantan (formerly Borneo) were thought to be especially rich in 1980 (68), although a later report refers only to "traces" of uranium in the region (69).
France's main uranium prospecting partner in Indonesia during the late 1970s was West Germany. At the same time, the two governments were holding talks with the government of Guyana, with a view to prospecting the South American state (70). Cogema secured prospecting rights in 1979 (71, 72), and apparently signed an agreement - along with Grundstofftechnik covering the disposal of wastes from mining three years later (73). The most promising finds were, apparently, in the Essequito region, but the search was abandoned at the end of 1985, due to falling uranium prices (14).
In 1984, Cogema, along with Pechiney, held talks over the Itataia uranium deposit in Brazil, with a view to Cogema mining, and its French partner building, a pilot processing plant (74) at Santa Quiteria (75). Agreement was reached the following year (14).
Through Afmeco/CEA, Cogema has long been exploring in Australia (25), and in 1988 it took up 1.25% in ERA, operators of the Ranger uranium mine (76). ERA in early 1988 signed a long term contract with EDF (77).
In the USA, Cogema's major uranium interests are held through Pathfinder. The company's operations were cut back in the 'eighties but plans were afoot to exploit rich deposits in the Grand Canyon during the late 1980s and beyond (89). In the 1970s, Cogema also explored the USA through its subsidiary Framco (25). The company produced some 300 tonnes of uranium concentrates at a profit of US$1.2 million in 1985 (2).
Cogema's penetration of US nuclear fuel services gained a fillip in 1987 when, together with Framatome and Uranium Pechiney, the company took up 49% in B and W Fuel Co - a subsidiary of Babcock and Wilcox, a company with between 10% and 15% of the market share for pressurised water reactors in the USA (78). B and W Fuel took over Babcock and Wilcox's 400 tonnes a year fuel fabrication plant at Lynchley, Virginia, and was expecting to diversify downstream into the handling and reprocessing of nuclear fuels (78).
As already mentioned, most of Cogema's uranium goes to EDF, the French state electric power company: in 1983, some 6000 tonnes with another 1000 tonnes destined for military enrichment (22). But Cogema is also a fairly important foreign supplier: its direct customers including Japan, Sweden, West Germany, Belgium (22) and South Korea (38). In 1982, a contract was concluded with Taipower of Taiwan, to provide 2000 tons of uranium (79).
Thomas Neff, in his major study of the international uranium market, has looked at all available figures for French imports and exports from the early 1970s until 1985 (and projected into the beginning of the twenty-first century). His conclusion is that, while between 1976 and 1983 "net annual procurements were very well matched to domestic/annual requirements", supply would exceed demand thereafter. But, when allowances were made for military requirements, and unless there were major failures to meet domestic growth targets, the major problem might be not excessive supply (and by implication lack of foreign customers) but a failure to diversify out of Africa. Neff predicted increased efforts by the French state to "replace some African supply with other sources" - a strategy clearly being carried out by Cogema in Canada. In any event, faced with surplus stockpiles, Cogema is in the envious position of being able to reduce domestic production, or increase exports (38).
It is in a less happy position with regard to excess enrichment capacity - though it has made considerable efforts to take this up in the last few years.
In 1982, the company sent enriched uranium to India after USA President Carter suspended supplies under the 1978 Non Proliferation Act (22). The following year, Cogema "wrested commercial superiority away from the US" in the field of enrichment, by landing contracts with five new US customers (80) - the supplies to come from the Eurodif plant.
Cogema carries out reprocessing for Switzerland and Spain, in addition to Sweden, West Germany and Belgium (22). Its major reprocessing customer, Japan, signed a contract in 1977 (81), without waiting for the outcome of the Windscale Inquiry in Britain (Cogema at La Hague, and BNFL at Windscale/Sellafield, were intending to jointly cope with Japan's reprocessing needs). An expansion programme was instituted at La Hague in 1985, to increase its capacity from around 1,000 tonnes a year to 1,600 - 1,700 tonnes (82).
In late 1984, the company also announced plans to establish international leadership in using plutonium - or MOX (mixed oxide) fuel assemblies - in light water reactors, starting with French nuclear plants (82, 83), partly in order to burn up plutonium which might otherwise accrue (84).
Belgonucleaire and Cogema, backed by Fragema and the manufacturing plants of Belgonucleaire and Cogema's Melox factory at Marcoule, have also established marketing facilities for MOX fuel worldwide. (The Melox factory has a design target of 100 tonnes/year by 1995.) Both Argentina and Japan are pioneering the use of plutonium recycling in-thermal reactors (90) and MOX fuel assemblies form part of the plutonium consignments contracted to Japan. In 1985, Cogema announced that many of these would be transported by air, as a safer proposition than sea transport (84) - a curious statement in view of its claim (in the International Atomic Energy Agency's Bulletin, the same year) that it had done its utmost to guard against any mishaps affecting uranium or plutonium carried by ocean-going vessels, and that "accidents that have occurred during the transport of irradiated fuel in France, as elsewhere, have never resulted in rupture or violation of a package's containment functions" (85). But then this was the year after the Mont-Louis disaster....
The air transport plan was, apparently, not implemented at that time, but revived in 1988, when BNFL and Cogema jointly stated their intention to fly reprocessed plutonium (up to 45 tonnes by the turn of the century) from Scotland to Japan, as part of a 1987 contract between the two European companies and Japanese utilities. This plan attracted considerable criticism, especially from the Nuclear Control Institute in Washington (86). The plutonium flights would pass through Anchorage, Alaska, where they would re-fuel after leaving Manchester's Prestwick airport. The Governor of Alaska objected strongly to the plan (91), as did Canadian environmentalists and a Yukon MP, Audrey McLaughlin, voicing fears of many indigenous peoples in the north of the country (92).
By the mid-1980s, Cogema was trying hard to sell surplus capacity at its Cap La Hague plant, by encouraging utilities to sign short term contracts. Already by 1985, a CEA official, Georges Vendryes, had expressed severe doubts that large-scale reprocessing to separate plutonium from spent fuel would get underway "for another twenty years" (87), as more and more uranium was coming onto the market at cheaper prices, as uranium exploration showed little sign of slowing down, and as the industry experienced considerable delays in bringing fast breeder reactors into commercial service (87).
In 1985, Cogema could boast that - with twelve major prospecting projects in Africa, North and South America, Spain and Australia (2) - it was the only uranium company to have roughly maintained exploration efforts in the last few years at a time when its main competitors had been slashing spending because of the falling uranium price (41). Its successes since then in Canada have further enhanced its position as world leader. So long as the French state remains the most highly nuclearised on the planet, so long as the French military regime maintains its nuclear force defrappe, and the various versions of French neo-colonialism, in Africa and the Pacific, remain intact, there is little doubt that Cogema, and its parent CEA, will head the frontrunners in the uranium industry indefinitely.
The latter half of the 'eighties marked a methodical entree by Cogema into the world of gold, as it sent its prospectors throughout France (93) and into Spain, Canada (94), the USA and Australia (95). Its underground gold mines south of Limoges, at Bourneix and Laurieras, which the company took over in 1987, are now moderately important producers (96, 99).
In 1990 these were acquired by the Australian company Arimco NL, in return for Cogema getting a stake of 61.3% in the Australian outfit (97). Cogema has also been looking for gold in Ecuador (98) and Zambia where its explorations include part of the Kafue National Park (96). Here it had been involved with Agip in a JV looking for uranium, a search which yielded little of value, so it has withdrawn from uranium exploration in the country (96, 98). In fact, the late 1980s marked a number of withdrawals by Cogema from areas once thought worthy of uranium prospecting (Senegambia for example) (98) and from mines in which it previously held an interest. In December 1988, Interuran GmbH (formerly Saarberg-Interplan Uran GmbH) announced the end of uranium mining at its Grossschloppen deposit in Bavaria (100). (Interuran is owned jointly by Cogema Uran Services (Deutschland) GbmH, Badenwerk AG, and Energieversorgung Schwaben AG) (95).
In March 1989, Cogema also said that it would be reducing its French workforce by 320 (to 2,180) and would be stopping low-grade uranium production for economic reasons (100, 101). A year later, it announced that it would be closing its Vendee mining division for the same reason: La Escarpiere mine had already closed down earlier than planned because flooding had rendered lower levels of the mine inoperable; extraction was also halted at the Piriac mine near Guerande (102). It is also planned that the Chardon-en-Loire and La Commanderie deposits will be abandoned, while Simo, which runs the concentrator at Escarpiere, is also expected to close by 1992.
Further Reading: Dave van Ooyen, Uraniummijnbouw in Frankrijk (duplicated) Amsterdam, 1982.
A Mouton, P Lafforgue, G Lyaudet (Cogema) in Industrie Minerale les techniques, France 10/84.
"Cogema: Nuclear integration from ore to spent fuel reprocessing and technical services" in E&MJ 8/86, pp 26-30; also "Uranium Mining is Alive and Well in France" E&MJ, 8/86, pp 26-30.
Contact: In France: CLAN, c/o Francois et Lucetre Pratbernon, 29 rue du Puy las Rodas, 87000 Limoges.
Comite de defence et de sauvergarde de la Montagne Bourbonnaise, le Puothier, 03300 La Chapelle.
Association contre les nuisances de l'exploitation des mines d'uranium de Sr Jean de la Blaquiere, 3400 Lodeve.
WlSE-Paris ,5 rue Bout, 1-75013 Paris.
Reseau Uranium 7, rue de l'Auvergne, F-12000 Rodez.
In UK: Partizans (People Against RTZ and its Subsidiaries),218 Liverpool Road., London N1 1LE (tel 071 -609 1852).
In Canada: Montreal Uranium Committee, Uranium Cafe Commun/Commune,201 Milton St, Montreal, Quebec.
SOURCE: "The Gulliver File - Mines, people and land: a global battleground" by Roger Moody.
Published in 1992 by Minewatch, 218 Liverpool Road, London Nl ILE, UK, and WISE-Glen Aplin, Po Box 87, Glen Aplin Q 4381, Australia.
Distribution: Sales to bookshops: Pluto Press, 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA, UK. Sales to the mining industry and libraries: Uitgeverij Jan van Arkel, A. Numankade 17, 357t KP Utrecht, the Netherlands.
***Note to electronic texts: selections from Minewatch are available to researchers on corporate and mining affairs. However, the detailed REFERENCES and CHARTS in the print version are not available in electronic form. You are encouraged to order the complete book from the sources above.***
All rights reserved. © Minewatch, 1992.
Page last updated December 6, 1997.
| Back to the Gulliver Archives | or | Back to the Uranium Resources Page |