DAKAR—The US government has approved up to $414 million in financing for a uranium project in Niger, according to the project’s developer, in what sources described as a win for Washington two years after the West African nation expelled all US forces.
The US Development Finance Corp approved the debt facility for Canadian miner Global Atomic’s Dasa project, which the company describes as the highest-grade uranium deposit in Africa, according to a company statement on Wednesday.
The investment could bolster US access to a strategic uranium supply at a time when Niger, the world’s seventh-largest uranium producer, is locked in a dispute with French state-backed miner Orano, which long dominated the country’s uranium sector….