Yellow cake factory ‘to be ready next year’ — executive

AMMAN — Director General of the Jordanian Uranium Mining Company (JUMC) Hussein Al Laboun has said that the process of building an automated factory for producing the yellow cake from uranium mined in Jordan will be operational in 2019. 

In a statement cited by the Jordan News Agency, Petra, on Tuesday, Laboun pointed out that the JUMC collaborated with a local engineering office to prepare the electromechanical designs, to be executed by a local company, while another is handling the design and testing of the automation process. 

He added that the factory will be the first of its kind in the region, to be completed two years after announcing the successful extraction of one kilogramme of the yellow cake, by the Jordan’s Atomic Energy Commission.

Having the factory in place will facilitate more processes related to the project, such as training manpower in this specialised industry, Laboun said, adding that these trainees constitute a guarantee of the sustainability of the project and will be available to man other projects in the mining industry.   

He noted that the quantity of the yellow cake in the mining locations is estimated to be  40,000 tonnes.

The manager director noted that an international advisory committee on Jordan’s nuclear programme was in the country in July to assess progress in the uranium project and reported the “high professionalism that the projects’ experts enjoy and praised the achievement made last year”.