What are the assessed aspects during the validation process? What does the economic relation between AREVA and Niger account for? Does the emergence of new mining companies have an influence on the partnership between AREVA and Niger? AREVA is already implementing solidarity projects with local population to the tune of six million euros per year over the next five years. Will Imouraren add to this amount? Are the group's economic repercussions generated by mining operations of benefit to the local population? What are the mining conditions in AREVA's Nigerien mines? What is the weight of public health issues in the group's mining policy? What measures does AREVA take in favor of environmental protection? What are the assessed aspects during the validation process?
The decision of granting the mining license for the Imouraren deposit was made only after three intense years of geological surveying and mining development studies that led up to a feasibility study, approved by AREVA and presented to the Nigerien government. There was also a thorough regulatory process to assess the project’s industrial, social and environmental aspects, including a number of work sessions with the Ministries – among which, a five-day public hearing in Agadez. The AREVA teams were able to demonstrate their accountability and expertise. After a framework agreement was reached in January 2008, AREVA worked with the Nigerien government to determine the “win-win” terms for the partnership, finalize the statutes for the future mining company and decide on the terms of the 20-year mining agreement.
It is the biggest industrial project ever planned in Niger and the world’s second-biggest open pit mine, which has been operating jointly by AREVA and Niger for nearly forty years. The decision was certainly worth nine months of deliberation and discussion. Taking this long to work things out is a sign of the excellence of this partnership.
return to top of page What does the economic relation between AREVA and Niger account for?
The development of Niger’s natural resources, from raising livestock to extracting raw materials, accounts for a large share of the country’s economy and considerably contributes to the state budget.
I n 2007, the group extracted 3,153 metric tons of uranium – about 7% of the world’s production – from Somair and Cominak, its two mining sites at Arlit. For AREVA, that represents about 50% of its current annual production, and for Niger, 5% of its GDP and 30% of its exports. Starting operations at Imouraren will at least double Nigerien production, increasing the contribution to the Nigerien economy.
return to top of page Does the emergence of new mining companies have an influence on the partnership between AREVA and Niger?AREVA has been Niger’s loyal partner over the past 40 years and the emergence of competing companies will provide a comparative viewpoint on the group’s performance in Niger. As uranium prices plummeted in the 1980s and mines were closing all over the world, the group continued to develop Niger’s deposits alone, when all the other global investors were pulling out. The group’s commitment provided a living to 2,000 Nigerien employees and their families – more than 20,000 people in all.
Now that the uranium market is picking up, it is only natural that Niger has decided to diversify its partners. Since 2006, it has granted more than a hundred exploration licenses to foreign companies – mainly Chinese, Canadian, Indian, South African and Anglo-Australian. Niger needs to develop, and its natural resources should serve that purpose. So, Nigerien authorities are acting in the national interests. The agreement concluded between Niger and AREVA does show, however, that the group remains an industrial reference for the country.
return to top of page AREVA is already implementing solidarity projects with local population to the tune of six million euros per year over the next five years. Will Imouraren add to this amount?AREVA will continue to step up its socio-economic development policy in Niger. The projects currently under way focus on promoting health, education/training, transportation, and access to water and energy for the local population. Operations at Imouraren will help reinforce the funding capacity for regional community projects.
return to top of page Are the group's economic repercussions generated by mining operations of benefit to the local population?AREVA aids Niger both by promoting socio-economic development at the national level through the mining royalties paid, and locally. This is an ethical duty consistent with the values shared groupwide. AREVA supports the national project to fight poverty and reduce the food crisis, though its regional programs in the areas around its sites by contributing 17 million euros over five years to the water and irrigation research project on the Irhazer Plain.
But it’s true that the local conflict facing the country complicates the exercise of social and corporate responsibility. The expectations of the population and the communities are, frankly, huge. The approach proposed by the group has been structured yet pragmatic. AREVA has planned a gradual roll-out of projects that the group deems to be sufficiently structured, without interfering with operations that were launched back in the 1960s by the group’s two mining companies (free hospital care, aid for water, electricity, and building schools, etc.). All this amounts to about six million euros per year over the coming years.
These projects have involved further basic-needs actions in the areas of health, education and culture, and a co-development initiative to set up a bilateral orientation committee and a development fund to encourage initiatives from newly decentralized local governments and from rural (nomads) and urban districts (Arlit). This strategy has become a reference for developing other regions in Niger.
To give one specific example, AREVA initiated a partnership between the Nigerien government and a private association, ESTHER, to develop an HIV/AIDS testing and treatment program in Northern Niger.
In the area of education, AREVA is financing training for 70 engineers and technologists over the next five years at EMIG, an engineering school in Niamey, the renovation of the Aïr Mining School (Emaïr) in Agadez, and training for 200 equipment operators to prepare for the Imouraren project. For three years (2007/2009), AREVA also sponsored the creation of a vocational training center for bread-making in partnership with French children’s aid committee CFSE. The center will train 32 unemployed youths, and help them return to work.
Projects for the next few years involve aid for socio-economic development and job creation. The electrification project for Arlit’s shantytown areas is one example of an experimental public/private/associative partnership to enable local socio-economic development through micro-jobs. With the help of Crédit Mutuel, the project was aided by a microcredit program. To help out new businesses, AREVA also has just entered into a partnership with Inergie, a venture capital company of which AREVA is a member.
While the inflow of a potentially large number of new mining stakeholders would surely be a source of industrial jobs, a financial boon and a stimulus for development, it could also engender significant cultural and socio-economic disparities at the local level. AREVA has heard spokesmen from the different communities express their legitimate desire to continue to pursue their herding, nomadism, market gardening and touristic activities, and not see them die out. But without water, these cannot develop in such an arid region, and neither can industry.
The hydro-geological exploration carried out in a limited area around Imouraren over the past two years has led to the discovery of 7.8 billion cubic metes of connate water in the aquifers (30% of this is non-potable). This would indicate considerable water resources at the catchment scale. Establishing an inventory of the quantity and quality of this non-or-nearly non-renewable resource and a water use plan remains to be done. The Nigerien government is willing, but the cost is so high that international aid would be indispensable.
So, the renewed interest in uranium could become a real development opportunity for Northern Niger; making it happen, however, will require a bona fide regional development plan that factors in solidarity.
return to top of page What are the mining conditions in AREVA's Nigerien mines?They are exactly the same as those in the group’s other mines in Canada, Kazakhstan, or formerly in France. AREVA’s Nigerien subsidiaries are proud of their accident rate (or frequency rate), which is ten times lower than the average rate for global industry in France. A company like Somair has been operating for two years without a single occupational accident resulting in employee sick leave: it is, on a sub-area wide scale, an exceptional result.
Furthermore, the group monitors its operations with all due diligence. In the workplace, the employees are provided with the adequate personal protection equipment and are monitored by the work inspection services. AREVA provides radiation protection to a standard higher than required by Nigerien regulations or even by the latest international standard, as it sets a maximum threshold at 18mSv/year instead of the recommended 20mSv/year. Workers are subject to regular dose monitoring and health inspections, and more than 30,000 measurements are taken each year at the two sites to monitor the radioactive impacts.
return to top of page What is the weight of public health issues in the group's mining policy? AREVA is very mindful of that. In spite of all the independent analyses and surveys in recent years demonstrating that there is no danger for the local populations, the fears have not all gone away. AREVA understands that uranium mining and radioactivity do raise such fears. The questions people ask are legitimate, and the AREVA responds to them.
Because AREVA considers itself duty-bound to respond in an irreproachable manner, the group has created health “observatories” around all its current and former mining sites. Their purpose is to monitor former employees and the local populations to determine the health impacts of uranium mining on their biological systems. This spearhead program will be under the government’s responsibility. It will involve the participation of scientific bodies and NGOs, including some of AREVA’s former critics. These innovative structures will provide the group with a multipartite view of uranium’s health impacts, which hopefully will dispel the remaining fears on the subject.
return to top of page What measures does AREVA take in favor of environmental protection?The potential impacts of Imouraren operations were examined in a 1,000-page study, which was submitted to Niger’s local populations and authorities in May 2008 and approved by them. AREVA even received a certificate of environmental compliance, without which the operating license would not have been delivered.
Somair and Cominak are currently the only companies in Niger that are certified for ISO 14001. The environmental monitoring procedures are subject to a specific action plan. The water, air, food chain, soils and environment are monitored regularly under the oversight of the Nigerien government. Hundreds of measurements are taken each year, and resource saving plans have been set up, notably for water. Due to thefts in the past, AREVA's mining companies are keeping materials like tooling and rebar under closer scrutiny, and are cooperating with the mining ministry to keep all contaminated rebar away from public land.
Mines are often considered as a source of impermanent activities. AREVA’s goal is to ensure that the mine will be a source of long-lasting wealth and development, and all of the group’s teams are guided by that goal.
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