Saudi Arabia plans to enrich and sell uranium, energy minister says

DUBAI: Saudi Arabia plans to monetize all minerals, including by selling uranium, Saudi energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said on Monday.

“We will enrich it and we will sell it and we will do a ‘yellowcake,'” Prince Abdulaziz told a conference in Dhahran, referring to a powdered concentrate of the mineral used to prepare uranium fuel for nuclear reactors. It requires safe handling although it poses few radiation risks.

Saudi Arabia has a nascent nuclear programme that it wants to expand to eventually include uranium enrichment, a sensitive area given its role in nuclear weapons. Riyadh has said it wants to use nuclear power to diversify its energy mix.

It is unclear where Saudi nuclear ambitions will end, since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said in 2018 that the kingdom would develop nuclear weapons if regional rival Iran did.

Fellow Gulf state the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has the Arab world’s first multi-unit operating nuclear energy plant. The UAE has committed not to enrich uranium itself and not to reprocess spent fuel.

The kingdom said last year it planned to scrap light-touch oversight of its nuclear facilities by the U.N. atomic watchdog and switch to regular safeguards by the end of 2024.

Riyadh has yet to fire up its first nuclear reactor, which allows its programme to still be monitored under the Small Quantities Protocol (SQP), an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency that exempts less advanced states from many reporting obligations and inspections.