Uranium One

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Uranium One Inc.
Industry Mining
Founded 2005
Headquarters Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Key people
 Chris Sattler (CEO)
Vadim Zhivov (President)
Products Uranium
Gold
Number of employees
 2,220[1]
Parent Rosatom
Website www.uranium1.com

Uranium One is a Canadian uranium mining company with headquarters in Toronto, Ontario. It has operations in Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan, South Africa and the United States. In January 2013 Rosatom, the Russian state-owned uranium monopoly, through its subsidiary ARMZ Uranium Holding, purchased the company at a value of $1.3 billion.[2] The purchase of the company by Russian interests is, as of October 2017, under investigation by the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

History[edit]

On July 5, 2005, Southern Cross Resources Inc. and Aflease Gold and Uranium Resources Ltd announced that they would be merging under the name SXR Uranium One Inc.[3]

In 2007 Uranium One acquired a controlling interest in UrAsia Energy,[4] a Canadian firm with headquarters in Vancouver from Frank Giustra.[5] UrAsia has interests in rich uranium operations in Kazakhstan,[6] and UrAsia Energy's acquisition of its Kazakhstan uranium interests from Kazatomprom followed a trip to Almaty in 2005 by Giustra and former U.S. President Bill Clinton where they met with Nursultan Nazarbayev, the leader of Kazakhstan. Substantial contributions to the Clinton Foundation by Giustra followed,[5][7] with Clinton, Giustra, and Mexican telecommunications billionaire Carlos Slim in 2007 establishing the Clinton Foundation's Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative to combat poverty in the developing world.[8] In addition to his initial contribution of $100 million Giustra pledged to contribute half of his future earnings from mining to the initiative.[8]

In June 2009, the Russian uranium mining company ARMZ Uranium Holding Co., a part of Rosatom, acquired 16.6% of shares in Uranium One in exchange for a 50% interest in the Karatau uranium mining project, a joint venture with Kazatomprom.[9] In June 2010, Uranium One acquired 50% and 49% respective interests in southern Kazakhstan-based Akbastau and Zarechnoye uranium mines from ARMZ. In exchange, ARMZ increased its stake in Uranium One to 51%. The acquisition was expected to result in a 60% annual production increase at Uranium One, from approximately 10 million to 16 million pounds.[10][11] The deal was subject to anti-trust and other conditions and was not finalized until the companies received Kazakh regulatory approvals, approval under Canadian investment law, clearance by the US Committee on Foreign Investments, and approvals from both the Toronto and Johannesburg stock exchanges. The deal was finalized by the end of 2010.[11] Uranium One's extraction rights in the U.S. amounted to 0.2% of the world’s uranium production.[12] Uranium One paid its minority shareholders a dividend of 1.06 US Dollars per share at the end of 2010.[citation needed]

ARMZ took complete control of Uranium One in January 2013 by buying all shares it did not already own.[2] In October 2013, Uranium One Inc. became a private company and a wholly owned indirect subsidiary of Rosatom.[3][13] From 2012 to 2014, an unspecified amount of Uranium was reportedly exported to Canada via a Kentucky-based trucking firm with an existing export license; most of the processed uranium was returned to the U.S., with approximately 25% going to Western Europe and Japan.[14][15]

Congressional investigation[edit]

Since uranium is considered a strategic asset with national security implications, the acquisition of Uranium One by Rosatom was reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a committee of nine government agencies including the United States Department of State, which was then headed by Hillary Clinton.[16][17][18] The voting members of the committee can object to such a foreign transaction, but the final decision then rested with President Barack Obama.[19]

In April 2015, The New York Times wrote that, during the acquisition, the family foundation of Uranium One's chairman made $2.35 million in donations to the Clinton Foundation. The donations were legal but not publicly disclosed by the Clinton Foundation, despite an agreement with the White House to disclose all contributors.[20] In addition, a Russian investment bank with ties to the Kremlin and which was promoting Uranium One stock paid Bill Clinton $500,000 for a speech in Moscow shortly after the acquisition was announced.[17][18] Several members of Clinton's State Department staff and officials from the Obama-era Department of Justice have said that CFIUS reviews are handled by civil servants and that it would be unlikely that Clinton would have had more than nominal involvement in her department's signing off on the acquisition.[21] According to Snopes, the timing of donations might have been questionable if Hillary Clinton had played a key role in approving the deal, but all evidence suggests that she did not and may in fact have had no role in approving the deal at all.[22]

In October 2017, following a report by John F. Solomon and Alison Spann published in The Hill and citing anonymous sources,[23][24] the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence opened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the sale of Uranium One.[21]

FactCheck.org reported that there was "no evidence" connecting the Uranium One–Rosatom merger deal with a money laundering and bribery case involving a different Rosatom subsidiary which resulted in the conviction of a Russian individual in 2015, contrary to what is implied in the Solomon-Spann story.[20][25] Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post wrote that the problem with some of the accusations that Republican commentators levied against Clinton is that she "by all accounts, did not participate in any discussions regarding the Uranium One sale".[26]

In October 2017, President Trump directed the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to lift a "gag order" it had placed on a former FBI informant involved the investigation. The DOJ released the informant from his nondisclosure agreement on October 25, 2017,[27][28][29] authorizing him to provide the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee, House Oversight Committee, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence "any information or documents he has concerning alleged corruption or bribery involving transactions in the uranium market" involving Rosatom, its subsidiaries Tenex and Uranium One, and the Clinton Foundation.[30] The informant's lawyer said that the informant "can tell what all the Russians were talking about during the time that all these bribery payments were made".[31] During a C-SPAN interview, Hillary Clinton said that any allegations that she was bribed to approve the Uranium One deal were "baloney".[32]

In November 2017, Shepard Smith of Fox News has described President Trump's accusations against Clinton regarding Uranium One "inaccurate in a number of ways". Smith said that the sale of Uranium One was "not a Hillary Clinton approval" but instead a unanimous decision by the nine cabinet-level department heads of CFIUS, approved by the president and with permits issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Smith added that "most of the Clinton Foundation donations" came from Frank Giustra, who said he "sold his stake in the company" three years before it was sold to Russia. Lastly, Smith noted that "none of the uranium was exported for use by the U.S. to Russia".[33][34][35]

On November 16, 2017, William Douglas Campbell identified himself as the FBI informant. He is a former lobbyist for Tenex, the US-based arm of Russia's Rosatom.[36][37]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Company Profile for Uranium One Inc (CA;UUU)". Retrieved October 10, 2008. 
  2. ^ a b Commodities; Mining (January 14, 2013). "Uranium One bought by top Russian shareholder ARMZ for $1.3-billion". Financial Post. Retrieved August 31, 2017. 
  3. ^ a b WISE Uranium Project "Following the completion of the Going Private Transaction, and an internal reorganization by ARMZ's parent corporation, Russia's State Atomic Energy Company 'Rosatom' in December 2013, Uranium One is now a wholly owned indirect subsidiary of Rosatom and is no longer controlled by ARMZ." updated April 1, 2015, accessed April 23, 2015
  4. ^ "Kazakhstan Probing Sales Of Uranium Deposit Shares". KazWorld. May 12, 2010. 
  5. ^ a b Becker, Jo; Van Natta Jr., Don (January 31, 2008). "After Mining Deal, Financier Donated to Clinton". The New York Times. Retrieved October 28, 2017. The monster deal stunned the mining industry, turning an unknown shell company into one of the world's largest uranium producers in a transaction ultimately worth tens of millions of dollars to Mr. Giustra, analysts said. 
  6. ^ "UrAsia Energy Ltd." updated April 21, 2007, accessed April 23, 2015
  7. ^ Jo Becker and Mike Mcintire (April 23, 2015). "Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation as Russians Pressed for Control of Uranium Company". The New York Times. Retrieved April 23, 2015. Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra orchestrated his first big uranium deal, with Mr. Clinton at his side. 
  8. ^ a b Parsons, Claudia (June 22, 2007). "Clinton, mining industry launch anti-poverty effort". Reuters. Retrieved October 22, 2017. 
  9. ^ "Kazakh tie-in for Uranium One and ARMZ". World Nuclear News. June 15, 2009. Retrieved June 24, 2009. 
  10. ^ Uranium One to Acquire Two More Kazakh Mines from ARMZ and To Pay Special Dividend to Minority Shareholders of at least US$ 1.06 per Share at the Wayback Machine (archived August 27, 2010)
  11. ^ a b "ARMZ takes hold of Uranium One". World Nuclear News. June 9, 2010. Retrieved June 9, 2010. 
  12. ^ Ritch, John (November 21, 2017). "This Uranium Deal Was No Scandal". The New York Times. Retrieved November 22, 2017. 
  13. ^ Uranium One : About Us : History
  14. ^ Solomon, John; Spann, Alison (November 2, 2017). "Uranium One deal led to some exports to Europe, memos show". TheHill.com. Retrieved January 28, 2018. 
  15. ^ Becker, Jo; McIntire, Mike (April 23, 2015). "Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal". NYTimes.com. Retrieved January 28, 2018. 
  16. ^ "Did Clinton help Russia obtain uranium for donations? Nope". Retrieved July 12, 2016. 
  17. ^ a b Becker, Jo; McIntire, Mike (April 23, 2015). "Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal". The New York Times. 
  18. ^ a b Campbell, Colin; Engel, Pamela (April 23, 2015). "The Clinton Foundation received millions from investors as Putin took over 20% of US uranium deposits". Yahoo! Finance. Retrieved August 31, 2016. 
  19. ^ Kiely, Eugene (April 28, 2015). "No 'Veto Power' for Clinton on Uranium Deal". factcheck.org. Retrieved July 12, 2016. 
  20. ^ a b Kiely, Eugene (October 26, 2017). "The Facts on Uranium One". FactCheck.org. Retrieved October 29, 2017. 
  21. ^ a b Schneider, Jessica; Mallonee, Mary Kay (October 24, 2017). "Obama-era uranium deal yields new questions, new accusations and new investigation". CNN. Retrieved October 27, 2017. 
  22. ^ "FACT CHECK: Hillary Clinton Gave 20 Percent of United States' Uranium to Russia in Exchange for Clinton Foundation Donations?". Snopes.com. October 25, 2016. Retrieved January 28, 2018. 
  23. ^ Solomon, John; Spann, Alison (October 22, 2017). "FBI watched, then acted as Russian spy moved closer to Hillary Clinton". The Hill. Retrieved November 10, 2017. 
  24. ^ Conca, James (October 27, 2017). "Claims of Clinton-Russia Uranium Collusion Are A Real Empty Barrel". Forbes. Retrieved November 3, 2017.  Forbes Energy BeltwayBrief contributed by geoscientist, adjunct professor at WSU, and trustee at the Herbert M. Parkier Foundation for education in the radiological sciences
  25. ^ Wemple, Eric (October 20, 2017). "Trump says the media won't cover 'real' Russia story. It already did. Years ago". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 4, 2017. 
  26. ^ Kessler, Glenn (October 29, 2017). "The 'dossier' and the uranium deal: A guide to the latest allegations". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved October 31, 2017. 
  27. ^ Davis, Julie Hirschfeld (October 27, 2017). "Trump Urged Gag Order to Be Lifted on Federal Informant". New York Times. Retrieved January 28, 2018. 
  28. ^ Solomon, John (October 25, 2017). "FBI informant in Obama-era Russian nuclear bribery cleared to testify before Congress". The Hill. Retrieved October 27, 2017. 
  29. ^ "Gag order lifted: DOJ says informant can speak to Congress on Uranium One, Russia bribery case with Clinton links". FoxNews.com. October 26, 2017. Retrieved January 28, 2018. 
  30. ^ "Uranium One probe: Order to lift 'gag' on Russia informant came from Trump, source says". Fox News. October 26, 2017. Retrieved October 27, 2017. 
  31. ^ "Clinton Uranium One deal: FBI informant blocked by Obama-era AG can unlock key info, attorney says". Fox Business. October 23, 2017. Retrieved November 7, 2017. 
  32. ^ Tatum, Sophie; Mallonee, Mary Kay; Schneider, Jessica (October 27, 2017). "FBI informant allowed to testify on uranium". CNN. Retrieved November 7, 2017. 
  33. ^ Barbash, Fred. "Fox News's Shepard Smith debunks his network's favorite Hillary Clinton 'scandal', infuriates viewers". The Washington Post. Retrieved 29 January 2018. 
  34. ^ Walters, Joanna. "Fox News anchor debunks 'Clinton uranium scandal' – and sparks viewer fury". The Guardian. Retrieved January 29, 2018. 
  35. ^ "Shepard Smith fact checks Fox News on Clinton, Uranium One deal". CNN. Retrieved January 29, 2018. 
  36. ^ Schectman, Joel (November 16, 2017). "Exclusive: Secret witness in Senate Clinton probe is ex-lobbyist for Russian firm". Reuters. Retrieved November 18, 2017. 
  37. ^ Schectman, Joel; Damon, Darlin; Ross, Colvin (November 16, 2017). "The secret witness in the Clinton uranium one probe is an ex-lobbyist for a Russian energy firm". Business Insider. Retrieved November 18, 2017. 

External links[edit]

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