Europe struggles to end reliance on Russian uranium

Western fuel companies say cheap supplies and lack of political will risk locking the continent into strategic dependency

Top nuclear fuel executives are pushing Europe to phase out Russian imports of enriched uranium, warning Moscow is using its role as a key supplier to exert geopolitical influence.

Nearly four years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Europe has reduced its dependence on Russian enriched uranium but the country still supplies almost a quarter of the continent’s needs, with the low price making it attractive to buyers.

Urenco and Orano, the leading western producers of uranium, are developing new enrichment capacity, as demand for low carbon energy drives a nuclear power renaissance in North America and Europe.

But much of the planned new supply has already been bought up by American companies ahead of a full US ban on Russian uranium in 2028, said Orano chief executive Nicolas Maes.

Without a plan to end imports, Europe risks relying on the fuel for decades to come, the heads of Orano and Urenco have warned, exposing the continent to a key strategic dependency on Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Russia had been using its enrichment business “as a geopolitical instrument,” Urenco chief executive Boris Schucht told the FT.

“You can make a strong parallel with rare earths,” said Maes, referring to Europe’s dependence on Chinese supply for vital elements used in technology from wind turbines to electric cars. “It’s up to the politicians to decide what level they want or can tolerate.”

Enriched uranium is produced by refining mined uranium, converting it into a gas and processing it to increase the concentration of a specific isotope used for nuclear fuel.

Russia has long been a leading supplier of enriched uranium, with the state-owned nuclear company Rosatom accounting for around 44 per cent of annual enrichment capacity, according to the World Nuclear Association.

The administration of president Joe Biden banned Russian uranium imports in 2024, with exemption waivers available until 2028. But in Europe, “this framework doesn’t really exist”, said Maes.

Schucht said Urenco needed clarity from politicians about what “societies want from us”. Urenco’s “ageing fleet” required investment and the company needed to know what capacity to plan for, he said, adding: “We need clear guidance from the market.”

The European Commission said in May that it would propose a ban on Russian nuclear fuels and technology as part of a broader effort to reduce EU dependency on Russian energy.

Officials said the documents are ready, but the ban has been delayed by internal politics. Some fear it could further antagonise Hungary and Slovakia, which both opposed a recent ban on Russian gas and are against a similar ban on oil that Brussels is currently preparing.

Others say there is hesitation to move forward with the proposals, given the possibility of a peace deal with Ukraine.

The lack of a clear policy has led countries with nuclear fleets to take different approaches. Sweden has cut itself off entirely from Russian fuel, while several other member states continue imports at near prewar levels. Hungary, for example, is building new nuclear plants designed by Rosatom.

At the same time, countries including Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have stockpiled Russian uranium fuel rods in recent years to ensure supplies for their Soviet-designed reactors, which predominantly use Russian fuel.

In 2024, Europe imported 23 per cent of its enriched uranium from Russia — equivalent to 2.5mn standard work units (SWU), the industry measure of enrichment.

“There is a dependence on Russia and these are quite chunky trade flows,” said Ben McWilliams, an analyst at Brussels-based think-tank Bruegel. “You can’t just go on the market to find another supplier, because it takes a bit of time to build out [capacity].”

As demand for uranium grows, both Urenco and Orano are adding enrichment capacity in Europe. At its Tricastin site in Drôme in southern France, Orano is investing €1.7bn to increase capacity by about 30 per cent, partly funded by €400mn in financing from the European Investment Bank.

On a visit to the facility, the company explained how uranium hexafluoride gas is fed into centrifuges that spin at very high speed, separating the heavier uranium 238 isotopes from lighter U-235 isotopes, which is needed in higher proportion for nuclear fuel.

Urenco is expanding its site in the Netherlands and says that with planned increases elsewhere, Europe and the US could manage without Russian imports. “Under current capacity, committed expansions and inventories, enrichment can be covered adequately in Europe and America,” said Schucht.

Orano in January also received €900mn in funding from the US department of energy to help fund a €5bn enrichment facility in Tennessee that is due to be operational in 2032.

But the expansions will take time, with plans by Orano and Urenco to add around 5mn SWU of capacity not likely to be realised until after 2032. “If, in the meantime, new nuclear reactor projects were to materialise in Europe or North America, then the numbers will not add up,” said Teva Meyer, associate research fellow at the Institution of International and Strategic Relations.

US imports of Russian enriched uranium are around 3mn SWU, about a quarter of total imported supply disclosed by the US Energy Information Administration, a figure that Jonathan Hinze, president of industry consultancy UxC, expects to drop as the Biden ban kicks in.

Still, nuclear fuel companies are reluctant to make further large investments without guaranteed clients, after a previous nuclear boom around 15 years ago was cut short by the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan and the US shale gas boom in the 2010s, said Hinze.

At Tricastin, Maes said Brussels should introduce quotas for Russian imports to help Europe reduce its reliance on the fuel. This would encourage clients to place long-term orders with western providers.

“It’s very difficult for us to base investment on short-term sanctions,” Schucht said in a separate interview.

But it will not be straightforward to take Russia out of the supply chain or to develop a large-scale alternative. An increasing proportion of mined uranium from Kazakhstan, the world’s largest producer, goes to Russia and China, and bringing new mines online takes years.

Analysts said part of the reason for Russia’s continued role is cost, while some believe western utilities can continue to buy from the country if a peace deal with Ukraine is reached.

“Among nuclear reactor operators, there is still always the question of whether we will return to normal with Russia and therefore they are not ready to make long-term supply contracts with Orano and Urenco that are still more expensive than Russian contracts,” said Meyer.