President of the Republic of Niger visits the Imouraren mine

News brief

OPERATIONS / MINES

January 31, 2012

On January 22, the President of the Republic of Niger His Excellency Mr Mahamadou Issoufou visited the Imouraren site with Sébastien de Montessus, Senior Executive Vice President of the AREVA Mining Business Group, the French Ambassador to Niger, Christophe Bouchard and Mohamed Akotey, chairman of the board of IMOURAREN SA, .

After looking over the site where the future open pit uranium mine will be located, the president visited the workshop where the 220-ton trucks that will be used in removing the overburden are being assembled.

During the meeting with our colleagues at the site, President Issoufou stated, “Imouraren is a significant project for Niger’s economic development. It has my full support and I would like to see everyone mobilized so that production can begin as soon as possible.”

For Sébastien de Montessus, “The President’s visit is an important moment for AREVA in Niger and an opportunity to honor the work of our teams. Right now, more than one thousand people are working at Imouraren. Our objective is to exploit this deposit, which will be the largest uranium mine in Africa and the also AREVA largest”..”

This visit was made during a trip by President Issoufou to the département of Arlit, where the “Festival de l’Aïr”, a very popular cultural and touristic event of which AREVA and the mining companies SOMAÏR, COMINAK and IMOURAREN SA are sponsors, was being held.