/ world today news/ Kazakhstan is the largest supplier of radioactive metals in the world. His company “Kazatomprom” is the leading producer of uranium in the world. 5 of the 10 largest uranium deposits in the world are being developed in the republic. According to the World Nuclear Association, Kazakhstan accounts for more than 41% of the world’s uranium production (of this volume, Russian assets account for about 40%). Out of 13 mines extracting uranium in Kazakhstan, 11 belong to foreigners. The British owner companies “Ganberg” (60%) and “Gesior” (40%) participate in the processing of uranium at the mining and chemical plant in Stepnogorsk.
Uranium from Kazakhstan is again sold on the world market through the Anglo-Saxons, more precisely the British company “Yellow Cake”, owned by the British investment fund “Bacchus Capital”. The company, specializing in the purchase and sale of this strategically important raw material, has been selling uranium purchased from Kazatomprom on the world market since 2018. At the same time, Yellow Cake supplies it to another Anglo-Saxon (Canadian) company, Uranium Royalty Corp. which then distributes it to the market.
By the fall of 2020, following the emergence of the world’s first exchange-traded fund investing in physical uranium, spot prices for this strategic commodity began to skyrocket. The price of a pound of uranium has more than doubled. At the same time, in late summer, Sprott Uranium, which competes with Yellow Cake, began aggressively buying up the assets of the world’s uranium companies. This caused an artificial drop in uranium prices on the market. By October-November, after the possible purchase of “Yellow Cake” became known, world uranium prices began to fall. As a result, in November-December, the company’s shares also fell.
At the same time, the government of Kazakhstan decided to trade the uranium mined in the republic independently, without the mediation of the British. On November 22, Kazatomprom, using the terms of a 10-year agreement, bought at a discounted price 25% of the uranium stock sold at Yellow Cake in 2018 (2 million pounds). The very next day, Yellow Cake and Genchi Global (UAE) signed an agreement on the physical uranium fund ANU Energy, which began functioning on the same day, November 23.
As a result, by the beginning of this year, Kazatomprom had become the world’s key supplier of uranium, both de jure and de facto. However, just days after Kazakhstan tried to enter the uranium market by bypassing British companies and funds, mass protests and riots broke out in the republic on January 2. At the same time, Yellow Cake’s stock began to rise; along with the unrest in Kazakhstan, the British company began to rapidly improve its shaky financial situation. During the peak of the turmoil on January 4-6, the company’s total stock turnover reached 3.7 billion.
Simultaneously with the destabilization of Kazakhstan, the process of redistribution of the uranium market began. While Anglo-Saxon’s profits soared, state-owned Kazatomprom’s fell by almost 10%.
On January 4-6, share prices and Australian uranium mining companies started to rise. All this allowed experts to declare the possibility of a crisis in the uranium market, comparable in scale to the global oil crisis, which would occur if events similar to what happened in Kazakhstan happened in Saudi Arabia. (It is significant that against the background of the news about the stabilization of the situation in Kazakhstan, the shares of “Yellow Cake” started to fall again).
In a geo-economic sense, the destabilization of Kazakhstan was an attempt by “Anglo-Saxon” South Kazakhstan (British + Canadians + Americans), where more than half of the uranium mines and processing plants are located, to seize the market and power from the still tentatively pro-Russian and pro-Chinese North Kazakhstan. One of the main prizes is the uranium deposits in the Turkestan and Kyzylorda regions (a quarter of the world’s production), the fight for which will unfold in the coming spring.
It is noteworthy that Turkish experts (for example, Umur Celikdenmez) directly connect the protests in Kazakhstan with the growing influence of Great Britain, which has invested more than 25 billion dollars in Kazakhstan’s raw materials sector and has become a refuge for a number of Kazakh oppositionists. Among them was Nazarbayev’s grandson Aysultan, who held high posts in the Kazakh special services and was awarded the British Medal for Bravery for participating in operations equivalent to combat. Aysultan died suddenly in London after seeking political asylum in Britain after he managed to write before his death about jihadist camps in the mountains of Kazakhstan.
The architects of the “Global Britain” project need constant instability in Kazakhstan with the redistribution of power and the revision of legislation obliging foreign uranium mining companies to establish a subsidiary in partnership with the state-owned “Kazatomprom”. This is very profitable for the British. In March-April 2022, the uranium reserves bought by Kazatomprom at a reduced price must be returned to them.
The main economic bonuses for “Global Britain” in the destabilization of Kazakhstan are uranium, oil and control over Chinese transit. One of the sources of “Kazakh-Maidan” was the inter-clan clashes at the crossroads of the confrontation between London and Beijing in the oil and gas sector of Kazakhstan. Nazarbayev’s relatives tried to put Chinese capital there – simultaneously with a similar “debritization” of the uranium trade to balance the interests of the Anglo-Saxon TNCs, which as of the spring of last year owned 74.5% of Kazakhstan’s oil production.
In this sense, Mukhtar Ablyazov, who shakes up the situation in Kazakhstan, connects with the British banking sector and various “Kazakh-Ukrainian” extremists (for example, the head of the “Til Maidan” organization Kuat Akhmetov, the nationalist Mukhtar Taizhan, Yeldos Nasipbekov, Zamanbek Tleuliyev and others). attack from Kiev the interests of China’s CNP and Russia’s Rosatom, helping to strengthen the positions of Anglo-Saxon corporations.
No less important is the interest in uranium in the military-political sphere. By 2030, China plans to increase the number of its nuclear reactors from the current 53 to 110. Kazakhstan, with its uranium raw materials, is China’s strategic partner in this regard.
The shaking of the situation in the republics in favor of one or other local elites, their split and the support of jihadists allow the Anglo-Saxons to strike at the strategic interests of Russia and China, reshaping the world uranium market in their favor.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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