Kashuupulwa says Namibia has no issues with Russian uranium mining company



Ambassador Clemens Handuukeme Kashuupulwa says Namibia has no problems with the Russian state-owned company Rosatom which is exploring uranium in the country's southeast.

Rosatom has been exploring uranium in Namibia for more than 12 years before it applied for a licence in October 2022. 

Rosatom's subsidiary, Uranium One, has been operating in Namibia through Headspring Investments Ltd since 2010.

The company calls its uranium project in Namibia Wings and focuses on Stampriet areas and parts of Omaheke.

The RIA Novosti of 27 November 2022 quotes Kashuupulwa saying there appear to be trust issues between the Russian company and the local population that lives in the exploration area.

"They are concerned about the possible groundwater pollution in the future due to the proposed method of developing the field," Kashuupulwa said.

The ambassador also told RIA Novosti that preliminary data had shown that the leaching method Rosatom wants to use is being used for the first time in Namibia.

Uranium One chairman Andrey Shutov told the local media in December 2021 that Russian geologists found Kazakh-type uranium deposits in the Stampriet Basin.

Shutov also said the deposits could be developed via the most environmentally advanced in situ leaching (ISL) method.

"In Namibia, all mines use traditional methods of mining uranium deposits. These are open or underground quarries. The Rosatom method is leaching, which frightens the republic's inhabitants. 

"The corporation should carry out additional scientific work to convince the country's population that there will be no pollution," Kashuupulwa said.

A Rosatom newsletter published in September 2022 quotes the Wings Project managers Kirill Egorov-­Kirillov, saying that experts estimated the deposit discovered in the area as one of the country's largest uranium reserves. 

Egorov-­Kirillov says Rosatom has invested more than US$50 million in the Namibian economy since the launch of Project Wings. 

He further says that if exploration and prospecting results are positive, the company might bring a uranium mill worth more than US$300 million.

Rosatom's activities have caused problems with the Stampriet Aquifer Uranium Mining Committee, which has accused the company of contaminating underground water and described Shutov's comments as misleading.

The committee argued that if Rosatom continued with plans to drill for uranium, they would contaminate the huge aquifer in the Stampriet basin.

Unesco says the Stampriet Transboundary Aquifer System (STAS) is the only permanent and dependable water resource for the local population living in an area that covers 87,000 sq. km from Central Namibia into Western Botswana and South Africa's Northern Cape Province.

After the company drilled holes using the new method, the agriculture ministry cancelled the two exclusive prospecting licences - 11561 and 1156 - granted to Headspring Investments on 9 November 2021.

The former agriculture executive director Percy Misika, the government cancelled the licences because of the company's carelessness.

Misika accused Headspring of gross violations and non-compliance with permit conditions.

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