Uranium giant gains momentum: Mantra Tanzania accelerates Mkuju River project implementation
Uranium Pilot Plant
The Mkuju River uranium mining project in southeastern Tanzania is entering a new, decisive phase of development.
The project operator – Mantra Tanzania Ltd., a subsidiary of Uranium One Group, which is part of Rosatom State Corporation – has announced the start of preparations for the construction of the main industrial complex.
Work on the site is accelerating: land preparation, road construction, and the creation of necessary infrastructure are underway.
Jerome Mashamba
The impetus for this stage came from the results of the pilot process plant, launched in July 2025. Over the past months, Mantra Tanzania’s specialists have gained valuable data on the deposit’s geological parameters and uranium ore processing technologies.
The “bottlenecks” in the production chain identified during the pilot plant’s operation enabled timely development of optimization solutions, which have already been incorporated into the main complex’s design documentation.
“The pilot plant has played its key role: it gave us an understanding of the real operating conditions at this deposit,” Mantra Tanzania Sustainability manager Majani Moremi Wambura noted. “We are now confident that we are building the main plant on a solid technological foundation.”
Symbolically, the pilot plant’s mission does not end there – it will continue to function as a testing and adaptation tool during the industrial mining phase, ensuring flexibility of process solutions as ore body characteristics change.
Majani Moremi
People – The project’s main asset
In April 2025, Mantra Tanzania successfully completed its first training program for local specialists. Residents of the Namtumbo region received professional technical training and have been hired by the company.
This is only the first step: the company intends to make professional training a systematic practice, including using the pilot plant as a permanent training base.
New Operators
Beyond job creation, Mantra Tanzania is implementing a wide range of social initiatives in the Namtumbo region – in education, healthcare, and local infrastructure development.
Scale and significance
The Mkuju River project is one of Tanzania’s priorities. Total investment will be approximately USD 1 billion.
According to expert estimates, the project’s macroeconomic contribution will exceed 1 percent of the country’s GDP, solidifying Tanzania’s position as one of Africa’s leading mining hubs and opening the country’s path to the global nuclear energy market.
