The main point of contention between Niamey and France’s Orano concerns the uranium stock extracted before the nationalisation of Somaïr, an issue that has recently received extensive media coverage. As nuclear fuel regains strategic importance for both Europe and Africa, a figure widely reported by several international outlets warrants verification against the available data.

In a televised address on Feb. 13, Niger's President Abdourahamane Tiani referred to uranium production from before Nigerien authorities took effective control of the Arlit mine.

A careful review of the footage shows the president cited "156.231 tonnes" (using French decimal notation, meaning roughly 156 tonnes). Several international media outlets, however, reported the figure as 156,000 tonnes, turning a few hundred tonnes into a stockpile equivalent to several years of global production.

The figure is not new

The volume of roughly 156 tonnes is not new. In late 2025, during a joint press conference by the ministers of mines and justice, Nigerien authorities had already cited this figure to refer to pre-nationalization production that would be subject to revenue sharing with Orano. Orano held 63.4%, compared with 36.6% for the state-owned company Sopamin.

The government has not publicly detailed the technical basis for its calculation. Orano, for its part, contests the nationalization and describes it as expropriation. The volume cited by authorities, however, is in the hundreds of tonnes, not hundreds of thousands.

The source of the error

The likely source of confusion lies in numerical notation. In the video, the president says "156,231 tonnes." An outlet unfamiliar with French decimal notation may read the comma as a thousands separator, interpreting the figure as 156,231 tonnes.

From there, the mistake spreads quickly. One outlet cites another, often without returning to the original footage. Within hours, a plausible volume becomes a gigantic stockpile. Such confusion is rare but not unprecedented in the mining sector, where volumes are large and scale is not always intuitive.

Beyond punctuation, sector data alone shows that 156,000 tonnes would be implausible for a country like Niger.

According to the World Nuclear Association, Niger produced 4,667 tonnes of uranium in 2012 and 4,116 tonnes in 2015, before production fell to 2,248 tonnes in 2021. Production has trended downward since the mid-2010s, notably following the closure of the Cominak mine in 2021. Data from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) show a similar pattern, with production reaching 2,992 tonnes in 2020, 2,282 tonnes in 2021, and 2,020 tonnes in 2022.

Annual exports closely track production, indicating no evidence of large-scale stockpile accumulation. Even at peak modern production of around 4,000 tonnes per year, it would take nearly four decades of continuous production, entirely stockpiled without exports, to reach 156,000 tonnes. Such a scenario doesn't align with documented trade flows.

Globally, the discrepancy is even more striking. World uranium production totaled 55,690 tonnes in 2022 and is projected to reach about 66,320 tonnes in 2026, according to industry forecasts. A stockpile of 156,000 tonnes would therefore represent nearly three years of global production. For comparison, Namibia, the world's second-largest producer in 2021, mined 5,753 tonnes that year, while Niger, ranked seventh globally, produced 2,248 tonnes.

Finally, figures cited by Nigerien authorities indicate that cumulative production at Somaïr between 1971 and 2024 amounted to approximately 80,517 tonnes. A single stockpile of 156,000 tonnes would therefore exceed the mine's entire historical production.

A question of methodology and economic stakes

The confusion comes at a time when uranium is once again a strategic asset. After several years of depressed prices, the market has rebounded. Still below $66,000 per tonne in January 2021, the spot price nearly tripled to exceed $180,000 per tonne in late 2025, driven by renewed global interest in nuclear energy.

For Niger, where uranium has historically accounted for a significant share of mining revenue and exports, each tonne now carries greater fiscal significance. In a high-price environment, the distribution of production has direct economic implications. This is why scale matters.

Louis-Nino Kansoun