Nuclear Energy and Uncommon Earths Pique U.S. Ardour in Armenia

• Armenia is making an attempt to blueprint US diplomatic consideration by highlighting trade and investment alternatives in mining and nuclear energy.
• The US Embassy in Yerevan has confirmed enhance for Armenia’s decision to guarantee a $150 million loan for a US-Canadian gold mining undertaking.
• Armenia is fascinated by bids from US, Russian, and South Korean companies to secure a recent nuclear reactor, doubtlessly shifting a ways flung from reliance on Russia.

Armenia, a rustic making a geopolitical pivot a ways flung from Russia toward the West, is finding success in attracting US diplomatic consideration by playing up alternatives for trade and investment within the mining and nuclear energy sectors.

Since taking the reins of govt in January, the Trump administration’s outlook on Eurasia has fixated on securing offers provocative rare earths and nuclear energy, underscored now not handiest by the White Condominium’s tried minerals deal with Ukraine, but also via comments made by Secretary of Advise Marco Rubio throughout a leisurely February dialog with Uzbekistan’s foreign minister.

Given the diplomatic focal point on minerals in Washington, it is now not a shock that the US Embassy in Yerevan lauded the Armenian govt’s decision on February 28 to guarantee a $150 million loan enabling a US-Canadian agency, Lydian Canada Ventures, to relish out constructing extraction and smelting facilities for a gold mining undertaking. Environmental protesters forced a cease in 2018 to trend of the Amulsar gold deposit and the undertaking had been in limbo since then. 

“Armenia is open for U.S. companies, and the U.S. Embassy is proud to enhance as we work toward a more prosperous future collectively,” be taught an embassy statement posted on Twitter, now dubbed X.

Within the period in-between, Armenian officers are dangling the likelihood that a US agency could secure a recent nuclear reactor in Armenia to alter the outdated Metsamor energy station. Companies from Russia, the US and South Korea relish reportedly submitted bids. David Khudatyan, the government minister overseeing the soft assignment, didn’t present an illustration of when the successful bidder would be announced.

“We proceed to scrutinize proposals for the reach of a recent nuclear station. … A name has now not yet been made,” Khudatyan said throughout a recent cupboard meeting. Most up-to-date plans demand the contemporary nuclear facility to become operational inside 10 years. The ageing Metsamor plant, which presents about 40 p.c of Armenia’s energy desires, is slated to undergo a refurbishment in 2026 to lengthen its lifespan till the replacement facility can lumber into service.

Russia’s Rosatom will update Metsamor and changed into long assumed as having the inside word on securing the contract to secure the contemporary plant. However the instant deterioration of Armenia’s and Russia’s strategic partnership, coupled with High Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s eagerness to fetch US backing for his “Accurate Armenia” initiative to remake the country’s political culture, would appear to elevate the potentialities that the US could emerge because the winner of the bidding assignment.

By Eurasianet.org

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