The future of Kyrgyzstan's resources
In the spring of 2024, the Kyrgyz Parliament in the first reading cancelled the moratorium on the development of uranium and thorium deposits, introduced amid protests by local residents in December 2019. This decision by the legislature not only caused a wide resonance among groups of people living near uranium and thorium deposits, but also serious interest among researchers as to the causes and future implications of the development both for the global industry and the country as a whole.
Current state of the uranium industry in Kyrgyzstan
The first uranium deposit in Kyrgyzstan, the Tuy-Muyun radium mine, was discovered back in the Russian Empire in 1899. Later, during the Soviet era, a new deposit, Maili-Su, was found on the territory of Kyrgyzstan as part of the 1934 expedition, and in 1950, construction of Combine No. 11 began to extract uranium from the ore of the Turakavak coal-uranium deposit. In total, 12 combines were established in the Kyrgyz SSR by 1980. However, after the collapse of the USSR, most of the plants in the republic ceased to function, leaving a powerful production potential and a large number of burials of radioactive processing products.
Today, the country's estimated uranium reserves are about 100,000 tonnes. Since 1991, the Kyrgyz government has made a number of attempts to resume the operation of the mines, but none of them was successful. Each time, local residents who suffered from numerous radioactive waste dumps remaining from the Soviet era got in the way of the authorities. Thus, in 2019, the media reported on the intention to resume uranium mining in the country at the Kyzyl-Ompol deposit near Lake Issyk-Kul. It was supposed to be developed by UrAsia, 70% of whose shares belonged to the Canadian-Chinese company Azarga Resources Limited, which owns several uranium mining companies around the world. However, the project was suspended and the moratorium was not lifted due to mass protests in Bishkek and Issyk-Kul oblast. People feared that the development of the deposits, which are located close to their homes, could harm the environment and adversely affect their health. However, according to publicly available data, UrAsia's licence was not cancelled.
Nevertheless, in 2024 the Kyrgyz authorities returned to the discussion of this issue, and in June the President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Zhaparov signed a law approved by the Parliament on the resumption of uranium ore mining in the country. This decision was primarily due to the need to diversify Kyrgyzstan's sources of income against the backdrop of a difficult economic situation caused by the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Subject to strict adherence to environmental norms and standards for uranium and thorium mining activities in Kyrgyzstan, the extraction and export of these minerals have the potential to become important components of the Kyrgyz economy.
Some experts link the intention of the Kyrgyz government to lift the ban on uranium mining with the agreement signed in 2022 with the Russian corporation Rosatom on the start of a project to build a low-capacity nuclear power plant in the country. Thus, in March 2022, Rosatom announced the start of manufacturing parts for the first reactor of the Kyrgyz nuclear power plant in Yakutia.
In addition to the Russian state corporation, several foreign organisations that had previously obtained a licence to carry out relevant work are also interested in resuming the development of uranium and thorium deposits. For example, in the early 2010s, the Chinese company Hebai Mining and the Australian company Monaro Mining NL obtained a licence to develop several uranium deposits in Kyrgyzstan, including the Kashkasu deposit. And in January 2019, the US company IMC Invest Inc, which owns several mineral deposits in Kyrgyzstan, received a licence to develop the Kamushanovskoye uranium deposit, located on the border with Kazakhstan, with known reserves of about 2.5 thousand tonnes.
Nevertheless, in February 2022, the President of Kyrgyzstan, Sadyr Zhaparov, at a meeting with local residents of the Ton district of the Issyk-Kul region and the Kochkor district of the Naryn region, stated that the deposits would be developed in-house without the participation of foreign companies. The head of state promised that 100% of all revenues from this industrial activity will go to the state, and the uranium mining company being set up will create thousands of jobs. In addition, according to media reports, Russia and Kyrgyzstan have reached agreements on annual training of 50 Kyrgyz citizens to obtain specialised knowledge of uranium and rare-earth metal mining.
Future of the thorium industry in Kyrgyzstan
In addition to uranium, the Government of Kyrgyzstan places great hope in the development of the thorium industry. The President of the country has already emphasised that thorium is an element that is not planned to be exported at first because of its high value on the world market and the need to build up its own reserves.
This metal is called "the uranium of the future" because it is one of the most promising chemical elements that can seriously compete with uranium in the nuclear power industry. Its main advantage is its higher energy efficiency and environmental friendliness compared to uranium, and the world reserves of thorium are 3-4 times higher than those of uranium. The leading countries in terms of thorium deposits include such countries as India (846,000 tonnes), Brazil (632,000 tonnes) and the USA (592,000 tonnes). However, according to some data, the total reserves of this element in the CIS countries - Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova and Armenia - amount to about 1.5 million tonnes.
At the same time, thorium has some disadvantages that hinder the full development of its mining. Firstly, this metal is a diffuse element that does not form its own ores and deposits, which affects the cost of its extraction. Secondly, stripping monazite, a mineral that contains thorium, is a more complex process than most uranium ores. For this reason, there is still no established technology to extract the element on an industrial scale.
Despite this, many states have already expressed their interest in developing thorium industry, and some have even begun to take concrete action. For example, India's Department of Atomic Energy considers thorium a "virtually non-exhaustible source of energy" that will not emit greenhouse gases and could eventually replace uranium in nuclear power generation, enabling New Delhi to achieve zero carbon emissions by 2070. And in August 2021, China announced the completion of its first experimental thorium-based nuclear reactor. The reactor, located in the north of the country in the middle of the Gobi Desert, will be tested for several years, and if the results are positive, the Chinese government plans to start construction of a second reactor.
It is important to note that for the first time the rationale for switching from uranium to thorium was announced by Soviet scientists in the 1960s of the 20th century, however, for unknown reasons, the thorium industry development programme was frozen. At present, a number of countries (Russia, India, USA, China) are actively engaged in the development of thorium extraction technologies.
The lifting of the moratorium on the extraction of uranium-thorium ores, as follows from the statements of the Kyrgyz authorities, is intended to ensure the national interests of the country, as well as to achieve world leadership in this area. At the same time, with the growing interest of the world powers in the development of the thorium industry, it is not excluded that Kyrgyzstan will change its position, including with regard to the moratorium on the export of this element. However, the success of Kyrgyzstan's uranium-thorium industry development will largely depend on Bishkek's ability to continue to independently create the infrastructure necessary for processing and production of energy carriers, which will allow it to pursue a course in this sector independent of foreign companies.
