LAETITIA LEMKE, PRESENTER: It's been a week since Japan's nuclear power plant was damaged by a powerful earthquake and authorities are still struggling to contain the fallout. As the nuclear crisis unfolded this week, uranium miners took a battering on the Australian sharemarket. Among them was Energy Resources of Australia, which owns the Ranger uranium mine near Kakadu National Park and supplies 10 per cent of the world's uranium. I spoke to ERA's chief executive Rob Atkinson this week. Rob Atkinson welcome to the program.

ROB ATKINSON, ENERGY RESOURCES OF AUSTRALIA: Thank you I'm delighted to be here.

LAETITIA LEMKE: How will the events in Japan affect your industry?

ROB ATKINSON: I think it's far too early to tell it's been tragic what's happened in Japan. As you said first the earthquake then the tsunami and I can't imagine what the Japanese people are going through and obviously that's triggered a number of events including the nuclear incident which they're dealing with. I think in the fullness of time the Japanese authorities will bring the situation under control, an investigation will be carried out and certainly the lessons from that will be heeded by the industry.

LAETITIA LEMKE: We are already seeing demand decline across the world; Germany for example has put on hold its plans to extend the life of its nuclear power stations. What does this mean for those who work for ERA and for your suppliers?

ROB ATKINSON: I think situations like Germany and situations like we've had in China where they've announced that they are going to have a moratorium and review the power stations is only natural after such a significant event. Until the situation in Japan is first of all understood and then fully investigated and the facts do come out that'll be the key factor in how the nuclear industry responds to this, this terrible incident.

LAETITIA LEMKE: Analysts say the disaster could see Inpex fast-track its plans for a gas plant in Darwin. Worldwide, does it look like gas is the future not uranium?

ROB ATKINSON: I think it's very very premature to be making calls like this. Nuclear is used in many countries and the lessons from Japan once they are known will certainly be applied and I think it is too early a day to say if gas is the predominant fuel of the future.

LAETITIA LEMKE: The disaster in Japan comes on top of what's already been a bad start to the year for ERA. You've had to shut down your processing plant for 12 weeks because of the bumper wet weather. How can you be optimistic about ERA's outlook?

ROB ATKINSON: We have had a challenging start to the year. The wet season as we all know in the Territory has been very very heavy. The key element for us is that water management is imperative not only to our short-term future but also to our long-term future. So the way in which the team at ERA have been handling that has been of the highest order. In terms of the future certainly we are at an interesting point at ERA's history with the open-pit exhausted in the next couple of years but we do have some exciting prospects whether it be around the heap leach or Ranger three deeps or further exploration on our lease and it's for those reasons that I am very optimistic about the future.

LAETITIA LEMKE: You've also faced environmental concerns; your tailings dam at Ranger is nearly full after the record rainfall. The Northern Land Council is worried radioactive water in the dam is a threat to Kakadu. Is it safe?

ROB ATKINSON: Absolutely it's safe and just to put that into context the tailings dam certainly has got enough capacity to still hold an above average remainder of the wet season and I think it's important to point out that ERA's dam which is fully engineered inspected structure is absolutely sound and we manage it up to our maximum operating level which is fully agreed with the regulators and monitored on a daily basis. Now that maximum operating level is still over a metre lower than the top of the dam so in terms of people commenting that the dam is close to overspilling is simply wrong. Water management is very very important to ERA we take great care with it and if we do have a deluge event then we do have contingencies which can transfer that water into the pit so there is no risk to Kakadu.

LAETITIA LEMKE: Rob Atkinson, thank you for joining us.

ROB ATKINSON: Thank you very much.