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| - A uranium mine in Niger announced its closure on Wednesday, as expected, after exploitable deposits of ore had been exhausted. The Compagnie Miniere d'Akouta, known as Cominak, is one of two Nigerien subsidiaries of Orano, the successor to the restructured French nuclear fuel firm Areva. "The Cominak mine will permanently close today. The reason for the closure is linked to the exhaustion of our deposits," a company official said. Cominak's board had announced in October 2019 that production would halt on March 31 this year as a result of high operating costs and a slump in the price of uranium. Accumulated losses from 2017-19 were more than 41 billion CFA francs ($73 million / 62 million euros), according to the Nigerien ministry of mines. Located in the southern desert town of Arlit, the mine extracted around 75,000 tonnes of uranium ore between 1978 and 2019, primarily destined for nuclear plants in France, the former colonial power. Orano has a 34 percent stake in Cominak, Niger 31 percent, Japan's Ourd company 25 percent and Enusa of Spain 10 percent. Cominak is providing a payoff of between 30,000 and 76,000 euros to its 600 employees, according to unions, and former members of the work force will be given regular health checkups for any past exposure to radioactivity. Orano's other mine in Niger is the Societe des Mines de l'Air, or Somair, where production plans have also been hit by the fall in the price for uranium. According to the French economy ministry, annual investment in Niger by French companies rose steadily from 2014, reaching around a billion euros, led by transport infrastructure and uranium mining, in 2017. Niger remains among the world's biggest producers of uranium, its leading export. bh/stb/ri/gd
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