India, Australia complete formalities for civil nuclear pact on the sidelines

The announcement was made after a meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull here on the sidelines of the G20 Summit.

The trade minister says domestic issues in India could interfere with plans to complete a free trade deal, but is confident Australia remains on track to complete it by year end. Sources described the meeting to be “very constructive” and pointed out to the result-oriented conversation in their first-ever bilateral meeting.

Australia had signed a civil nuclear settlement with India in September final yr to provide it uranium for assembly Indian power wants.

The significant part of the civil nuclear cooperation agreement was that Australia agreed to become “a long-term reliable supplier of uranium to India”.

The finalized supply deal with Australia could be quite lucrative for Australian uranium producers and uranium mines, which include BHP Billiton’s (NYSE:BHP) Olympic Dam, Ranger, Beverley, Four Mile and Honeymoon.

It may be recalled that former Australian PM Julia Gillard paid a state visit to India in October 2012. World Nuclear Association and Australian government say that Australia ranks third in terms of production of uranium. It now has nuclear energy agreements with 11 countries and imports uranium from France, Russian Federation and Kazakhstan. While nuclear does have substantial carbon foot-print from mining to the fabrication of high-grade concrete and other equipments, it can not address climate change simply because climate change is a much more immediate challenge and nuclear power plants take typically 12-15 years to be built. “This will help support growth and innovation and importantly create new jobs opportunities for Australia”, Robb had said, adding that India presented a few enormous prospects for Australian exporters on account of a market of 1.2 billion people.