Clode’s Uranium Assurances Leave Out the Most Important Facts

592GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

Clode’s Uranium Assurances Leave Out the Most Important Facts

OPINION BY: Hem Kumar October 2026

U92 Energy’s CEO, Adam Clode, says it would be “very strange” for Guyana to refuse uranium exploration at Kurupung. But his public defence of the project leaves out the central fact already recorded in his company’s own regulatory paperwork: approximately 88,000 metres—almost 55 miles—of historic drill core has been sitting at the project site, moved repeatedly from its original covered storage, with part of it identified as “unsorted historic drill core.”

That omission is not minor. It goes to the credibility of every assurance now being offered about “minimal” impact, reversible disturbance, manageable radiation and a project supposedly too routine to warrant deeper independent scrutiny.

The question Guyana must ask is not whether uranium has been explored in Canada, Australia or Central Asia. The question is whether U92 has told Guyanese people the whole truth about conditions at Kurupung—and whether its claims have been independently tested.

The fact he left out

In the Project Summary for Environmental Authorization prepared for LIA (Guyana) Inc. in March 2026, the company’s own consultant recorded that 88,000 meters of drill core from past work remained on site near the Aricheng airstrip. The same document stated that the core had been moved several times from original covered storage areas and “needs to be moved to a safer, adequate facility.”

The company’s own aerial image reportedly identifies a “Temporary drill core-sorting pad” and an area of “Unsorted historic drill core.”

That is the equivalent of almost 55 miles of historic core—an extraordinary quantity of material associated with decades of uranium exploration—stored at a site the company itself acknowledges requires a safer and more adequate facility. This corresponds strikingly with the Amerindian Peoples Association’s reported concern about some 55 miles of core at Kurupung.

Yet in a lengthy public discussion about radiation, environmental controls, reversibility and public fears, Clode did not confront this issue directly. He did not say when U92 discovered the condition of the historic core. He did not say whether the safer facility has been completed. He did not say what independent radiological monitoring has been done around the temporary storage site. He did not say whether nearby communities have seen the results.

Those are not side issues. They are the issues.

“Minimal impact” is not an answer

Clode seeks to reduce the environmental question to the physical footprint of a drill pad: create a pad, drill a hole, cap it, revegetate the area. But this is an incomplete account of uranium exploration.

The public is entitled to ask about:

◊ The handling, cutting, sorting and storage of uranium-bearing core.

◊ The condition of historic material accumulated through prior exploration campaigns.

◊ Whether core boxes, storage areas and sorting locations are protected from weather, erosion, runoff and unauthorized access.

◊ Whether radioactive minerals, dust or radon are being monitored.

◊ Whether nearby watercourses, soils, sediments and vegetation have been tested.

◊ Whether workers, contractors and persons from surrounding communities can be assured that exposure pathways have been identified and controlled.

◊ Whether historic exploration has left conditions that must be remedied before another drilling campaign proceeds.

A drill pad may be rehabilitated. That does not automatically resolve what remains above ground, what has been repeatedly moved, what may have been stored in temporary conditions, or what may be affecting the surrounding environment.

The chest X-ray comparison

The chest X-ray analogy deserves particular scrutiny.

A chest X-ray is a controlled medical procedure, undertaken with calibrated equipment, known parameters, professional supervision and a defined duration. It is not a substitute for site-specific evidence about a uranium exploration property.

It does not answer:

◊ What radionuclides are present in the core and surrounding material.

◊ What radiation readings have been taken at the historic storage locations.

◊ Whether radon, gamma radiation, dust or other exposure routes have been assessed.

◊ What baseline testing was completed before U92 began preparing its program.

◊ Whether water testing has been conducted upstream and downstream of core-storage and drill areas.

◊ Whether readings were taken by an independent qualified laboratory.

◊ Whether the results have been supplied to the EPA, affected communities and the public.

No corporate executive should be allowed to substitute a broad comparison for actual measurements from the site in question.

If U92 has the tests, it should publish them. If the tests do not exist, then Clode’s confident statements about negligible risk were not grounded in independently verifiable evidence.

A future storage plan is not present safety

The March document’s description of a proposed storage facility is revealing. It reportedly describes a site to be cleared and compacted, a partially roofed structure, palletized core boxes and a ventilated unit for core cutting. But that description was written in the future tense.

The obvious conclusion is not that U92 has admitted a radiation release or proven community exposure. No responsible publication should make such a claim without testing and scientific evidence.

The conclusion is simpler and more serious: the company’s own submission establishes that the storage arrangement then in place was not considered adequate and that a safer facility was still contemplated.

That should have been central to Clode’s interview. It was not.

Instead, he asked Guyanese people to accept that nothing significant was at stake, that exploration was minor, that concerns could be cured by information-sharing, and that denial of drilling would be “strange.” That is not transparency. It is a selective presentation of the record.

The missing evidence

The issue is not whether U92 says its employees will wear dosimeters. The issue is whether the public can verify the company’s statements through independent records.

The public should now demand immediate disclosure of:

◊ A complete inventory of all historic core at Kurupung, including the quantity, location, condition and ownership of each core stockpile.

◊ The date on which U92 or LIA first determined that the historic storage arrangement was inadequate.

◊ Confirmation of whether the 88,000 meters of core has been moved to the safer facility proposed in March 2026.

◊ The design, construction status, inspection record and security arrangements for that facility.

◊ Radiological survey results for the historic core, temporary sorting pad, prior storage sites, core-cutting areas, access routes, soils, surface water, sediment and groundwater.

◊ Results of any testing for gamma radiation, radon, uranium and associated radioactive elements.

◊ The names of the laboratories used, analytical methods, detection limits and quality-assurance procedures.

◊ Worker monitoring results, including the dose-monitoring protocol and the independent body responsible for review.

◊ EPA inspection reports, permit conditions, compliance reports and enforcement records.

◊ A clear public explanation of how nearby communities were notified and what information they were given.

Without these records, phrases such as “well understood,” “minimal,” “reversible” and “safe” remain corporate assertions—not established facts.

The community issue cannot be waved away

Clode reportedly says there are no inhabitants inside the license area, while acknowledging communities exist to the north, east and south. That is not a complete answer.

People do not need to live within a license boundary to be stakeholders. Rivers, rainfall, wildlife, forests, hunting grounds, fishing areas, trails, air movement and customary relationships to land are not confined by company coordinates.

The relevant question is whether communities were told, in clear terms, that a large historic inventory of uranium exploration core existed nearby; whether they were informed that it had been repeatedly moved; whether they were told the company regarded existing arrangements as requiring a safer facility; and whether they had access to independent technical advice before environmental decisions were taken.

The claim that some residents previously worked at the property does not establish informed consultation. Employment is not disclosure. Proximity is not participation. Silence is not consent.

Guyana must not be rushed

The company’s commercial interests are obvious. U92 has acquired control of the project, secured historic data, advanced plans for drilling and must satisfy investors who expect the company to turn a historical uranium estimate into a more valuable current resource.

That commercial urgency is exactly why Guyana’s regulators must be independent, demanding and transparent. The country cannot allow corporate timetables, investor expectations or agreements concerning prospective output to become a substitute for public-interest safeguards.

Guyana is not obligated to prohibit uranium exploration. But it is under no obligation to accept a uranium project on the strength of a CEO’s assurances—particularly where the company’s own documents identify an unresolved historic core-storage problem.

The question Clode must answer

Clode says a refusal to allow drilling would be “very strange.” The stranger proposition is this: that Guyana should approve a new uranium exploration campaign without first establishing, through independent testing, what condition 88,000 meters of historic core is in, what radiation levels exist at and around the storage areas, what exposure pathways have been assessed, whether communities were properly informed, and whether the “safer, adequate facility” the company itself described has actually been built.

Until those answers are provided, independently verified and made public, the reasonable response is not blind acceptance. It is scrutiny.