491 PNC The PNC has explored, either independently or in JVs, for uranium in Canada, the USA, Australia, Mali, Colombia, Guinea, Gabon and Zambia, as well as in all six domestic areas of Japan (1).
In late 1977, PNC entered agreements with the Australian ACM, and Command Minerals to explore around Murchison, Western Australia, and with Magnet Metals (also Australian) to explore around the Eucla Basin in Western Australia (2).
Later the same year an unconfirmed report suggested that PNC was developing an "on site" UF4 facility in South Africa (3): certainly it was operating a facility to convert from UF4 into UF6 at Nigyotoge (Japan) in 1976, using either imported yellowcake or uranium liquor from heap leaching (1).
Exploration for uranium in Mali started as a "full scale exploratory search" (4) in 1977 in Kidal and Tessalit, to the north, near the Niger/Algeria border (5). PNC would receive 80% of the output from any future mines (6). By 1979, the corporation had been joined by Cogema and was assessing uranium values in a 65-square-mile region where PNC had been granted "exclusive rights" (7). In early 1979, along with Agip and Cogema, PNC was invited to explore for uranium in Guinea (8). No further details have been issued, and when, in 1981, the Guinean government invited nine countries to discuss eight "recently discovered" deposits, Japan was not among them (9). The Cogema consortium was wound up that year (10).
In April 1978, the corporation entered a JV agreement with Pancontinental to explore for uranium in Australia as a whole (11).
Along with Agip and Saarberg Interplan, PNC has also been exploring for uranium in Zambia (1).
In Colombia the corporation started work in 1978 with Coluranio, Enusa, and Minatome, in an exploration programme which was (in 1980) extended until 1982 (13).
In Canada, PNC has been exploring both under its own name and as PNC Exploration (14) in Saskatchewan and in the Osoyoos, Vernon, and Greenwood mining divisions of British Columbia (15); and also in the Northwest Territories (1).
More recently, PNC has announced a significant uranium find at Yilgarn, 900km east of Perth, Western Australia, which contains possibly 10,000 tonnes of 0.3% ore (16). While PNC Exploration (Australia) Pty Ltd was reported ten years later, to be "exploring for uranium in South Australia, NT and WA" (21) perhaps its most controversial operations focused on the Western Desert, where - together with CRA- it held leases over the mineral (and uranium)-rich land of the Martu people, who vehemently opposed any exploitation (see CRA for further details).
By 1979, the company's Canadian subsidiary, PNC Exploration (Canada), held 300 square miles of uranium permits in the Athabasca basin, Saskatchewan (17). Ten years later, PNC Exploration (Canada) Ltd was among the ten most active exploration companies searching for the magic yellow mushroom in Canada (22) . In 1990, it teamed up with Denison (20%) in its JV with Chevron Minerals Ltd and Interuranium Canada, on the Waterfound river uranium property, close to Midwest Lake (see Denison) (23).
In 1984 PNC reached agreement with the Chinese government to undertake joint exploration in the Tengchung district of Yunnan province (18).
By 1984, the "quasi-government" PNC had become, in the words of the Engineering & Mining Journal, "the key actor in Japan's worldwide quest for new uranium sources". In August 1983 it acquired 10.889% of the equity in the Dawn Lake JV, east of Waterbury Lake, Canada, thus securing a firm stake in the western world's most promising new uranium region (19).
This was later increased to 17.525%, with Cameco holding 50.486%, Cogema 19.525%, CEGB 7.5% and KEPCO 4.5% (24) PNC also purchased 15% of the equity in the Midwest Lake JV (see Denison mines).
Since September 1979 the company has been operating a pilot centrifuge uranium enrichment plant, the capacity of which, in 1984, was raised from 50 to 200 tons. A new nuclear power complex, in which PNC will undoubtedly play a major role, was planned at Rokkashamura, to provide one sixth of Japan's enriched uranium needs by the year 2000 AD (12).
In 1984 PNC also operated a small nuclear fuel reprocessing plant (0.7 tons a day) and an experimental fast breeder reactor (FBR) known as "Joyo": another FBR was planned for 1991. A prototype ATR reactor called "Fugen" was operating in 1984 and the company was experimenting in the vitrification of nuclear "waste" (20).
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.
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