Edgar Sengier
| Edgar Sengier | |
|---|---|
| Born |
9 October 1879 Kortrijk, West Flanders, Belgium |
| Died | 26 July 1963 (aged 83) Cannes, Alpes-Maritimes, France |
| Nationality | Belgian |
| Alma mater | University of Leuven |
| Occupation | Director of Union Minière du Haut Katanga |
| Known for | Uranium supply to the Manhattan Project |
Edgar Sengier (9 October 1879 – 26 July 1963) was a Belgian businessman and director of the Union Minière du Haut Katanga (UMHK) mining company during World War II. Sengier is credited with giving the American government access to much of the uranium necessary for the Manhattan Project extracted from the company's mines in the Belgian Congo. He was the first non-American civilian to be awarded the Medal for Merit by the United States government.
Born in Kortrijk in Belgium, Sengier graduated in 1903 as a mining engineer from the University of Leuven and joined the Union Minière du Haut Katanga (UMHK) as it was beginning to exploit mines in the province of Katanga in the Belgian Congo. The UMHK was owned jointly by the Société Générale de Belgique, a Belgian monopolist investment company, and the government of the Belgian Congo. The Société's activity was, among other things, to mine copper deposits in Katanga.
Uranium was discovered as early as 1915 in Shinkolobwe, and extraction began in 1921. Uranium ore from Shinkolobwe was very rich (it contained up to 65% of uranium); in comparison, Canadian ore contained only 0.02%.
In May 1939, Edgar Sengier, then director of both the Société Générale and the UMHK, learned about the potential of uranium from European scientists. British scientists had warned him that should the material he possessed fall into the enemy's hands, the consequences would be catastrophic. Sengier understood that uranium, a by-product that had until then been stored without being used, could become a crucial resource in times of war. In September 1940, he ordered that half of the uranium stock available in Africa (about 1,250 tons) be secretly dispatched to New York, arriving on 10 November – 19 December 1940.
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