NIGER-ENERGY-NUCLEAR-MINE-AREVA

Trucks carry rocks containing uranium 23 February 2005 at Arlit opencast mine in the Air desert, one of the world's most impoverished regions. At the Arlit uranium mine, expolited by Areva of France, the world's largest nuclear engineering group, deep in the Sahara desert in Niger, the uranium ore is so close to the surface that workers go just sixty meters down to the bottom of the open pit mine to retrieve it. The Areva Mining Business Unit specializes in exploration, mining and processing of uranium ore, a strategically important raw material for nuclear fuel. Areva is the world's second largest natural uranium producer. Some 7,000 tons of uranium, about 20% of world production, are extracted each year from mines operated by the group and located mainly in Canada and Niger. AFP PHOTO PIERRE VERDY (Photo by PIERRE VERDY / AFP) (Photo by PIERRE VERDY/AFP via Getty Images)