RIO Tinto's listed uranium subsidiary, Energy Resources of Australia, is finally enjoying the benefits of higher uranium prices at its Ranger uranium mine in the Northern Territory.

But hopes ERA will be able to develop the nearby $20 billion Jabiluka uranium deposit remain just that, with no breakthrough on an agreement with traditional owners in sight.

ERA has posted a record December-year profit of $272.6 million based on Ranger production, up from $119 million previously (on an underlying basis). The result reflected the benefit of the group's realised uranium price rising from $US32.53 a pound to $US50.84 a pound.

In previous years, the price received for Ranger uranium was held back by legacy contracts written at the low uranium prices that prevailed before the market took off in 2007 in response to rising expectations that nuclear power was the long-term answer to carbon pollution concerns.

Uranium prices have retreated substantially from the $US100 a pound average in 2007 but the current long-term price of $US61 a pound is still a multiple of the price ERA and other uranium producers had to endure in recent years.

The record profit has prompted an increase in the group's final dividend from 20¢ a share to a fully franked 25¢ a share. The ex dividend date is February 15 and the dividend will be paid on March 5.

ERA chief executive Rob Atkinson said yesterday that there had been ''no change there at all'' in relation to Jabiluka. ERA signed a long-term care and maintenance agreement in 2005 that obliges it to secure the consent of the Mirarr people to develop the deposit, one of the world's biggest high-grade deposits.

''We fully respect the agreement … and we fully abide by that,'' Mr Atkinson said.

Reserves and resources at Jabiluka stand at an unchanged 141,000 tonnes. That compares with the remaining total at Ranger of 159,000 tonnes.

ERA said the outlook was bright, with a ''strong market and sustained government and public interest around the world in nuclear energy as a critical part of the mix in a carbon constrained economy''.