Swedish parliament votes to allow uranium mining

"The Riksdag has voted in favour of the Government's proposal on uranium mining in Sweden," a statement from the parliament said. "The decision states that it will be allowed to mine uranium in Sweden and that uranium is to be classed as a concession mineral, that is a mineral which is especially useful for society.

"The decision also means that activities in which small amounts of uranium are handled will not be subject to a permit requirement and will not be subject to a municipal veto. A municipal veto means that municipalities can, by means of a local political decision, determine whether or not to allow such activities in the municipality."

Sweden's Environmental Code was amended to ban uranium exploration and mining in 2018. Earlier this year the government announced the draft law, proposing amendments that would allow the extraction of uranium in the country.

Australian mineral company Aura Energy said the change will mean that from 1 January uranium will now be regulated as a concession mineral under the Minerals Act, embedding it within the conventional permit process for mining in Sweden and potentially adding substantial value to polymetallic projects like the company's 100%-owned Häggån vanadium, potash and uranium project.

"This vote means that from now on uranium has the potential to be an important contributor to Sweden's economy and energy security, and to support the region's intention to triple nuclear power," Aura Executive Chairman Phil Mitchell said. "Given that Sweden has 27 percent of Europe's known uranium within its bedrock, the commercial potential is significant."

A scoping study for Häggån published in September 2023 was "constrained" by the uranium mining prohibition, Aura said, but the company will now "examine options to include uranium in its future plans" and increase its investment in exploration activity in Sweden.

"We have been consistently open about the fact that we would like to extract uranium in a safe and environmentally friendly manner from the Häggån deposit. It is economically sensible, more resource efficient and less environmentally wasteful to use Swedish uranium to support the country's nuclear ambitions and a global nuclear renaissance, rather than treat it as a waste component to the Häggån polymetallic deposit as currently required," Mitchell added.

Sweden-focused Canadian polymetallic exploration and development company District Metals Corp's Viken project contains an estimated 1.5 billion pounds U3O8 (577,000 tU) along with significant mineral resource estimates of vanadium, molybdenum, nickel, copper, zinc, and other important and critical raw materials.

The company's CEO Garrett Ainsworth said he was "very pleased" with the historic vote, which "positions Sweden to unlock its vast uranium resources in support of the green energy transition amid growing global geopolitical uncertainty".

The company updated its mineral resource estimate for Viken earlier this year, in anticipation of this decision, as well as completing airborne geophysical surveys across its uranium polymetallic properties in Sweden, he said. "Looking ahead to 2026, we are now eager to further advance exploration programmes at our uranium properties in Sweden that we anticipate will include fieldwork, additional airborne geophysics, drilling, and an economic study of the Viken Deposit."