SYDNEY: Australia's potential to become to the global uranium market what Saudi Arabia is to oil is under the threat of legislation that would outlaw uranium mining over an area five times the size of Texas, Michael Angwin, director of the Australia Uranium Association, said Monday. Alan Carpenter, the Western Australia State premier, has long opposed uranium mining as a matter of policy, but he has promised to make his opposition into statewide law if he wins re-election on Sept. 6 against his pro-mining opponent, Colin Barnett. "This would be an enormous setback for Australia, which has enough reserves to be to uranium what Saudi Arabia is to oil," Angwin told Reuters in an interview. Prospectors have pegged millions of square acres of outback showing signs of uranium in hopes the ban will be lifted. Last month, Cameco Corporation of Canada paid Rio Tinto $495 million for one undeveloped property. Uranium mining is opposed in the states of Western Australia and Queensland but allowed in South Australia and the Northern Territory. Barnett is running on support for uranium mining, predicting new mines could be dug within five years to meet international demand for the nuclear fuel, in turn generating millions of dollars in royalties for the state. Barnett, once a state mining minister, has long championed the interests of local mining companies, giving miners hope that the ban would be rescinded. But the outlook for Australian uranium seems dimmer as polls suggest that Carpenter will win re-election despite an early swing to Barnett in late August. According to Angwin, studies show that uranium would contribute about 3.2 billion Australian dollars, or $2.7 billion, to the gross domestic product of Australia. "Australia's uranium industry is never going to be as big as coal or iron ore, but there is still a significant amount of uranium that can be mined," Angwin said. "Currently, Australia produces around 10,000 tons a year, and if we mined and exported to our potential, we could do 28,000 to 37,000 tons by 2030," Angwin said. "Western Australia holds 7 to 10 percent of all the country's uranium." Australia has no nuclear power industry of its own, but it does have the world's single largest source of uranium: BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam deposit. The country sells all the uranium it mines overseas, making it the world's second-largest supplier, behind Canada. With its vast reserves, Australia could supply around 36 percent of the world's uranium needs, though the ban on new mines in most states has reduced that to about 23 percent. The uranium is dug from two mines in South Australia and one in the Northern Territory. Parts of Africa and Eastern Europe are emerging as competitive suppliers of uranium oxide to the world's nuclear reactors, numbering around 440 and forecast to more than double over the next 20 years, Angwin said. Opposition to uranium mining has its roots in Australia's antinuclear movement in the 1970s. "But even if the ban in Western Australia were lifted today, you are looking at three to five years before the safeguards are in place to allow shipping of uranium," Angwin said. Russia, China and India have expressed strong interest in buying Australian uranium to run their nuclear power plants. An agreement reached last year to sell uranium to Russia scheduled to be ratified later this year should be scrapped because of Russia's military push into Georgia, some lawmakers have said.