Business
26 March, 2025
Global appetite for North West uranium: CEO
There would be a lot of interest in the North West if the uranium mining ban was lifted.
International investors are showing increasing interest in the future of uranium mining in North West Queensland.
That’s the view of Mount Isa Minerals CEO Nicholas Huffels on his return from a four-week business trip through Europe and the United States.
With global demand for uranium ore exceeding the current level of extraction, Mr Huffels said investors around the globe were increasingly eyeing off the plentiful deposits in the North West.
He said he had been seeking support for planned copper, gallium and quartz projects at Mount Isa, but the conversations repeatedly turned to the company’s solid uranium discoveries on the same tenements.
“We haven’t focused on our uranium story because Queensland governments haven’t historically been supportive of uranium mining,” he said.
“But I just spent four weeks travelling around Europe and the United States and there is a lot of interest. I think uranium is poised for a big future.”
Mr Huffels said a more informed public was fuelling renewed confidence in uranium.
“I have been involved in uranium since my 20s and I have always been very bullish about it,” Mr Huffels told North West Weekly.
“There is a marked shift in attitude in how the public thinks about uranium and nuclear and I think investors are responding.
“The industry has successfully started to shift the discussion away from negative events in the past and have focused the narrative instead on how better technology, better safety and more energy intensity can really help solve a lot of the power issues we are confronting around the world.”