US approves $414M uranium investment in Niger, two years after troops left

The United States government has signed off on as much as $414m in financing for a uranium project in Niger, according to the project’s developer, two years after Washington agreed to withdraw troops from the African country. The US Development Finance Corp approved the debt facility for Canadian miner Global Atomic’s Dasa project, which the company describes as the highest-grade uranium deposit in Africa, according to a company statement on Wednesday. The investment could bolster US access to a strategic uranium supply at a time when Niger, the world’s seventh-largest uranium producer, is locked in a dispute with French state-backed miner Orano, which long dominated the country’s uranium sector.