Kazakhstan, the world's leader in uranium production, reported production grew 19,000 tonnes in 2011, a 6.72% increase from the 17,803 tonnes made in 2010.

Although this is below Kazakhstan's earlier projection of 19,600 tonnes, the country still stands to benefit with the growing global demand amidst the global environment concerns.

The country's Industry and New Technologies Ministry announced on Thursday that as shortfalls in global uranium supply is seen to further increase in the coming decades, there will be more pressure for the industrial economies of China, India, U.S. and other European countries to find alternative solutions to balance out the environmental degradation with power generation requirements.

Conservative prospects

However, this early, the Kazakhstan government already gave feelers opposing proposals that aim to expand production targets for the year 2012.

"Taking into account the current condition of the market, there is no reason to increase output," Albert Rau, Deputy Industry and New Technologies Minister, was quoted as saying by Reuters in a briefing. Kazakhstan will most likely retain its 2012 uranium output at last year's level, he stressed.

Vladimir Shkolnik, chief executive of state nuclear company Kazatomprom, Kazakhstan's largest uranium producer, had earlier said the country sought to improve total uranium yield to 20,000 tonnes in 2012. Kazatomprom was the fourth ranked uranium producer in the world as of 2009.

Kazatomprom, which mines uranium on its own, has forged major strategic links with Russia, Japan and China, as well as acquired significant shares in international nuclear company Westinghouse.

Approximately one-fifth of the world's uranium reserves, or about more than 15 per cent, are located in Kazakhstan. Total resources of uranium are more than 1.5 Mt, and more than 1.1 Mt can be mined by in situ leaching. In 2009, Kazakhstansurpassed Canada to become the world's largest producer.

Meanwhile, in a report titled 'Analysis of Uranium Supply to 2050,' the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said certain medium economic growth and ecologically driven energy policies will prompt the world's future demand of uranium to exceed actual supply.

Between the years 2000 and 2050, the world will need a total of 5.4Mt of uranium, the IAEA said. A shortfall of about 1Mt is expected to occur because of issues like the timing and cost of new developments.

This would mean that countries involved in uranium production would need to invest in exploration now, as it takes 8 years to 10 years from discovery before a new mine can be constructed and production effected.

There are currently only 117 uranium mines operating around the world, compared to 1,211 gold mines, according to data gather by www.fm.co.za. Moreover, the present numbers of uranium exploration projects correspond to only one-sixth of gold projects. Australia, Canada, the US and Namibia had the largest number of exploration projects.

Currently, a total of 434 nuclear reactors are in service around the world, with another 560 proposed or under construction up to 2030, www.fm.co.za said. Present global demand for uranium is about 180mlb annually, however, only 141mlb is mined and the remainder is sourced from stockpiles. By 2030 the midrange forecast for demand suggests a 100mlb deficit. And given uranium's current world prices, projects are also most likely to be delayed.

Quoting RBC Capital Markets, www.fm.co.za said uranium prices will average $77 per pound this year and $80 per pound after 2013.

Spot uranium currently sells at an average of $53.45 per pound, from the previous above $70 before the unfortunate Fukushima disaster.

The top ten uranium producing countries as of 2009 includeKazakhstan, Canada, Australia, Namibia, Russia, Niger, Uzbekistan, United States, Ukraine and China.