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U.S. Energy Department carefully helping private uranium producers

the additional government supplies in the market could have depressed prices, making it difficult for producers to expand operations……….

Energy Dept cancels surplus uranium transfers

By Tom Doggett

WASHINGTON, Feb 4 (Reuters) – The U.S. Energy Department has canceled plans to put into the market during 2011 extra government-owned surplus uranium supplies, Energy Secretary Steven Chu told Congress on Thursday, but the uranium transfers will continue for this year.

The department had planned to transfer next year up to 1,125 tonnes, or about 2.48 million lbs, of its surplus uranium a year to raise money to pay for the cleanup of the Portsmouth uranium enrichment plant in Ohio………

Not only would business be taken away from domestic uranium producers, but the additional government supplies in the market could have depressed prices, making it difficult for producers to expand operations……….

The Energy Department has 59,000 tonnes of inventories of natural uranium built up for military purposes during the Cold War and is releasing the stocks gradually over about 25 years. (Reporting by Tom Doggett; Editing by Walter Bagley and Lisa Shumaker)

UPDATE 2-U.S. Energy Dept cancels surplus uranium transfers | Reuters

February 6, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear secrecy, nuclear wastes, uranium