Czechs reject Australia's Uran uranium offer

...mining, saying the country could do the job on its own.

Uran has submitted an offer to invest in research and mining at the country's Rozna mine in Dolni Rozinka, operated by state firm Diamo.

Diamo now gets 300 tonnes of uranium per year from the Rozna mine, which has reserves in place until about 2012 and may have more, subject to exploration.

"The offer by Uran Limited is interesting, but we will secure mining and exploration of deposits with our own forces," Industry and Trade Minister Martin Riman said in a statement.

"I had asked Diamo to prepare a document for the government, compiling the options of extending mining uranium and securing exploration work."

The ministry said Uran had offered 640 million crowns ($29.68 million) for getting rights to mine on current and future stopes and a 50 percent share of revenues from the mine.

It had also proposed a narrower option for half the price, it said.

Both Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek and Riman have said they are in favour of prolonging uranium extraction beyond the planned Rozna mine closure in 2008.

The final decision is up to the government, which is expected to discuss it by the middle of 2007.

The Czechs have been gradually closing down uranium deposits since the end of Communism in 1989 as world demand dropped.

But a rally in uranium prices in recent years has made the sector economically viable again, Diamo has said.

Apart from mining at Rozna, the company gets an additional 40 tonnes per year as the result of environmental clean-up at the decommissioned Straz pod Ralskem mine.

Diamo has also said there were 115,000 tonnes of uranium at the northern Czech Hamr mine, on the same deposit as Ralsko, which had been closed but could potentially be reopened if it gets the nod from politicians.

That deposit is larger than the total of 110,000 tonnes of uranium mined in the country since 1945, including busy years when the Czechs supplied the Soviet Union.

The government decision this year is expected to be restricted to the Rozna mine in Dolni Rozinka.

[PRAGUE/Reuters/Finance.cz]