X-Nico

5 unusual facts about Union Minière du Haut Katanga


Émile Francqui

He became the Managing Director of the Banque d'Outremer, and Managing Director of the Union Minière du Haut Katanga (UMHK).

Olen, Belgium

In the 1920s and 1930s the Union Minière du Haut Katanga company, operating in the then Belgian colony of Congo, had a virtual monopoly of the world uranium market (holding most of the deposits known at the time).

Union Minière

Union Minière du Haut Katanga (UMHK), a mining company operating in Africa prior to 1966

Union Minière du Haut Katanga

At a meeting on 18 September 1942 between Edgar Sengier, head of UMHK, and United States General Kenneth Nichols of the Manhattan Project, Nichols purchased the 1500 tonnes of uranium (mostly mined at Shinkolobwe mine, near the town of Likasi) the project required.

Göran Björkdahl (a Swedish aid worker) wrote in 2011 that he believed Dag Hammarskjöld's 1961 death was a murder committed in part to benefit mining companies like Union Minière, after Hammarsköld had made the UN intervene in the Katanga crisis.



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