Last Friday (12), the President of the Republic, Jair Bolsonaro, issued Medida Provisória nº1.133 de 12 de agosto de 2022, which flexibilizes private sector participation in nuclear exploration and research in the country.
The change opens the way for partnerships with Indústrias Nucleares do Brasil S.A. (INB), a state-owned company inaugurated in 1988 and linked to the Ministry of Mines and Energy – MME.
The MP updates the legal framework for the nuclear mineral exploration sector, which dates back to the 1960s and 1970s. Such modification hopes to insert Brazil in the international best practice scenario, modernizing the activities of research and mining of these ores, explained the MME in a note.
To this objective, it alters above all Lei nº 6.189, de 1974, which deals with the Federal Government’s monopoly over these activities. It also revokes a series of provisions, among them article 31 of Lei nº4.118, de 1962, according to which the
mines and deposits of substances of interest for the production of atomic energy constitute national reserves, considered essential to the security of the Country and are maintained in the domain of the Federal Government as imprescriptible and inalienable property.
The MP enters the urgency regime as of September 26, on the voting agenda. It is valid until October 10, and may be extended for another 60 days if Congress has not yet decided on it.
Regulatory Overview
Today, INB is directly responsible for the activities of research, mining, enrichment, industrialization, and trade of nuclear ores and derivatives.
The state-owned company covers the entire production chain: from mining to manufacture of the fuel that generates electricity for the national nuclear power plants.
From the new legislation on, new models of association between INB and private companies will be allowed for the exploration of mineral deposits that have nuclear ores.
Brazil, despite having large nuclear ore reserves, still depends on the importation of a large part of the necessary inputs for the manufacture of the nuclear fuel produced in the Angra I and II plants.
In this sense, with the updating of the legislation, it is expected that INB, in partnership with the private sector, will increase investments in research and mining and the national production capacity of uranium.
With the enactment of the MP, regardless of the economic value of the nuclear elements present in a mineral deposit, it creates the opportunity for partnerships between the miner and INB, for the use of all the mineral resources present in the deposit, explained the MME in a statement.
Benefits to the Miner
With the new edition of the MP, it is underlined by article 5 of the MP the authorization for INB to “enter into contracts with legal entities” on any “forms established in contract” of remuneration, among them:
- Cash remuneration;
- Percentage of the amount collected from the commercialization of the product of mining;
- Right to commercialize the ore or
- Right to purchase the product of mining.
Note: Although the MP allows the association between INB and the holder of the research or mining, it maintains the prerogative to ” take over the mining right by INB”, “upon prior compensation “.
Final Provisions of the MP
The Constitution provides for the use of nuclear technology in Brazil exclusively for peaceful purposes, so the measure also represents another advance in the sector’s modernization process, which began with the creation of the Autoridade Nacional de Segurança Nuclear (ANSN).
Nuclear technology is present in the everyday life of every Brazilian: imaging exams that use radiation, in the treatment of diseases such as cancer, in the irradiation of food to avoid the proliferation of fungi, among other uses. And all this starts in the research and mining of nuclear ores.
With socio-environmental responsibility, the MP hopes to attract private capital and exempt taxpayers, generating new jobs and income for the population and consolidating Brazil as a safe haven for investments.
Read the full text Medida Provisória nº1.133/2022.
Sources:
MME, Agência Senado, MEDIDA PROVISÓRIA Nº 1.133, DE 12 DE AGOSTO DE 2022
