en.Wedoany.com Reported - French nuclear fuel cycle company Orano held a groundbreaking ceremony in early June 2026 at the Zuuvch Ovoo deposit site in Mongolia's Dornogovi Province, marking the official start of the construction phase for this uranium mining project. The project is planned with a development period of four years, an estimated annual production capacity of approximately 2,500 tonnes of uranium (tU), a mine life of about 30 years, and is expected to create around 1,600 direct and indirect jobs.
Orano is a state-controlled nuclear materials and nuclear fuel cycle company headquartered in Paris, France, established in 2017 (restructured from the Areva Group), with operations covering the entire industry chain including uranium mining, uranium conversion and enrichment, spent fuel reprocessing, and nuclear facility decommissioning. Orano Mining has been conducting uranium exploration in Mongolia's Gobi Desert region since 1997, discovering the Dulaan Uul deposit in 2002 and the Zuuvch Ovoo deposit in 2010. According to data from the World Nuclear Association as of 2023, Mongolia's uranium resources amount to approximately 144,600 tonnes (tU), ranking tenth in the world. Since the closure of the Dornod mine operated by a subsidiary of Russia's Priargunsky Industrial Mining & Chemical Union in the mid-1990s, Mongolia has not conducted any uranium mining.
The project will adopt the In-Situ Leach (ISL) method, also known as In-Situ Recovery (ISR) technology. From 2021 to 2022, the project's joint venture company, Badrakh Energy LLC, completed the first full-process pilot operation at the deposit site, verifying the entire process from leaching to uranium product output, producing a total of approximately 10 tonnes of uranium, and confirming the technical, economic, and environmental feasibility of the technology. Orano Chairman Claude Imauven stated that 2025 marks the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between France and Mongolia, and the Zuuvch Ovoo project reflects the joint development of this strategic project that creates sustainable value for Mongolia and Dornogovi Province.
On January 17, 2025, Orano Mining and the Mongolian government signed an investment agreement in Ulaanbaatar, making the Zuuvch Ovoo uranium mine project the second large-scale foreign-invested mining project in Mongolia to enter the actual implementation phase, following the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine. The project is operated by the Franco-Mongolian joint venture Badrakh Energy LLC, established in 2017, with Orano and Mongolia's state-controlled enterprise Mon-Atom LLC holding shares, of which Mon-Atom LLC holds a 34% stake. According to the terms of the investment agreement, over 51% of the direct revenue generated by the project will accrue to Mongolia through taxes, dividends, and royalties.
This project is the first uranium mining project to be constructed in Mongolia since the mid-1990s, marking the resumption of uranium production in the country after approximately 30 years, and laying the foundation for the country's uranium industry technology and talent system.
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