Dedicated supplier of natural uranium products in China

The China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) owns a complete uranium exploration, mining and milling system. The corporation is the country’s major force in uranium exploration and a dedicated supplier of natural uranium products in China. By placing more investment in uranium exploration and expanding capacity building in recent years, CNNC has built up the integrated capability of aerospace, aerial, and surface based exploration and improved the drilling capacity from less than 30,000m/year in 1999 to the current 500,000m/year, thus guaranteeing clean nuclear energy with uranium resources.

Scientific innovation system and R&D platform

CNNC possesses one key laboratory for national defense, two secondary metering stations for national defense and one national nuclear emergency airborne monitoring center.

Since 2000, CNNC has won six first and second prizes among the National Awards for Science & Technology Progress and 153 provincial and ministerial prizes; five of its scientific achievements have been rated among the “Ten Geological Science & Technology Progresses” of the Geological Society of China and another five among the “Ten Geological Prospecting Achievements” of that society. Moreover, its unmanned airborne geophysical prospecting station has received multiple honors. Five of its scientists received the “Li Siguang Geological Science Award” and three won the “Huang Jiqing Youth Geological Science & Technology Award”.

Key breakthrough in sandstone-type uranium prospecting in North China

CNNC has reshaped the landscape of China’s uranium exploration and exploitation and made new breakthroughs in research on metallogenic theories and prospecting patterns for in-situ leaching sandstone-type uranium deposits. It has also created a technical and methodological system of metallogenic prognosis and exploration evaluation for in-situ leaching sandstone-type uranium in continental sedimentary basins in China, and established a geological technical standard system for in-situ leaching sandstone-type uranium, thus filling the domestic gap in this area.

China’s uranium exploration depth tops 2,800m

The depth of CNNC’s “first scientific deep drilling” has reached 2818.88m, an achievement which fills a domestic gap in deep uranium prospecting, expands prospecting space, further enhances the technical system of “deep prospecting & dead zone exploration” for hydrothermal-type uranium deposits, and indicates that China has entered a deeper and wider phase of uranium prospecting.

World’s leading-edge high-level waste disposal research

CNNC has laid down evaluation and research methodology for site characterization and engineering barrier performance, established a technical system for site evaluation of waste repositories and geological disposal, and independently developed China’s first large cushion material test bed for high-level waste disposal, filling a gap in domestic capabilities in that regard.