Junta opens uranium sales to global buyers as tensions with France deepen and Russia’s influence grows.

Niger’s military government has announced that uranium produced by Somair, formerly a subsidiary of the French company Orano before it was nationalised in June, is now being offered on the international market.

Uranium mining has become a focal point in the standoff between the junta, which took power in 2023, and Orano, a company that is majority owned by the French state and has operated mines in Niger for decades.

The announcement was made on state broadcaster Tele Sahel in a Sunday evening report that cited remarks by General Abdourahamane Tiani, the head of the junta.

According to the report, Tiani asserted Niger’s “legitimate right to dispose of its natural riches and sell them to whoever wants to buy them, under market rules and in complete independence.”

Russian Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilev said in July that Moscow was interested in mining uranium in Niger.

Since the 2023 coup, the country has increasingly turned to Russia for support in its fight against jihadist insurgents, while distancing itself from France, which it accuses of backing separatist groups.

In 2024, Niger removed Orano’s operational control of its three main mines: Somair, Cominak and Imouraren, the last of which contains one of the world’s largest uranium deposits.

CBI News reports that Orano still officially holds a 60 percent stake in the mining subsidiaries and has launched several arbitration proceedings in an effort to regain operational control.

In 2022, Niger supplied roughly a quarter of the natural uranium used by European nuclear power plants, according to data from Euratom.