Australian Trade Minister:re Uranium banWestern Australia Should Lift Uranium Mining Ban, Vaile Says
Nov. 23 (Bloomberg) -- The Western Australian state government should lift its ban on uranium mining to allow the state to profit from its A$7 billion ($5.2 billion) of viable deposits of the fuel, Australian Trade Minister Mark Vaile said.
``The state government has a moral responsibility to allow uranium mining in the interests of the environment and Australia's future,'' Vaile, a federal minister, said in an e- mailed statement today. ``It must lift the ban immediately.''
Uranium prices have more than doubled since the start of last year, according to Metal Bulletin Plc. Australia is the world's second-biggest exporter of the fuel, holding 38 percent of the world's reserves, though accounting for 22 percent of the world's exports, according to the Uranium Information Centre.