Russia is one of the main suppliers of uranium in the world
Source：RIA Novosti
From：Taiwan Trade Center, Moscow
Update Time：2023/10/16
In the first half of 2023, the United States bought 416 tons of uranium from Russia, which is 2.2 times more than in the same period last year and the maximum since 2005, according to RIA Novosti calculations based on data from the American state service.
Russia supplies to the United States only fuel enriched with uranium-235, which is the main item of Washington's "radioactive" purchases. At the same time, the analysis also takes into account data on imports of natural and depleted uranium, which the United States purchases from other countries.
According to the agency's calculations, in the first six months of this year, the States increased the purchase of uranium from Russia to 416 tons (188 tons for the same period last year). The last time such values were recorded was in 2005, when 418 tons of fuel were imported to the USA from Russia.
The United States paid 696.5 million dollars for the supplied Russian uranium, which was the highest value since 2002 — there are no earlier statistics broken down by month. Over the year, the cost of supplies increased 2.5 times, and the share increased by 13 percentage points to 32%.
In June, Russia delivered to India the first batch of uranium for local nuclear power for $ 13.5 million since 2019, according to an analysis by RIA Novosti of data from the Ministry of Trade and Industry of the republic. The volume of products purchased in New Delhi amounted to 118 tons.
The last time Moscow supplied uranium to India was in 2019: then 1.77 thousand tons of metal worth 101.6 million dollars were exported for the whole year.
Moscow and New Delhi are actively cooperating in the nuclear energy sector. With the participation of Rosatom, new units of the Kudankulam NPP are being built, and prospects for the construction of new capacities in India under Russian projects are being discussed.
In mid-August, Rosatom CEO Alexey Likhachev said at a meeting with Vladimir Putin that the state corporation had acquired the Budenovskoye uranium deposit in Kazakhstan and had reached the second place in terms of reserves of this strategic metal in the world.
Earlier, the Spanish government explained the purchase of uranium from Russia by the absence of EU sanctions in this area, the Spanish newspaper Mundo reports, citing cabinet data.
According to the newspaper, the government referred to the absence of an effective EU ban on Russian uranium to justify the continued import of this raw material to Spain since the beginning of the conflict, in response to a parliamentary inquiry in which the deputy from the Unidas Podemos party and the president of the commission on environmental transition Juancho Lopez de Uralde demanded figures on the transportation of nuclear fuel in Spain for the last months.
"So far, none of the sanctions imposed against Russia as a result of the conflict in Ukraine have affected the activities of ENUSA (state nuclear company - ed.) or the import of raw materials such as uranium," the newspaper reports the response of the Spanish government to the deputy.
Western countries cannot overcome their complete dependence on Russian uranium, Bloomberg writes.
"Rosatom Corporation continues to be the main supplier of fuel for the world's nuclear power plants, providing about half of the global demand for enriched uranium," the publication reported. The Russian company controls supply chains, starting from ore extraction and ending with enrichment and delivery, the authors of the article noted.
The countries of Eastern Europe are most dependent on Rosatom, and Ukraine will be able to abandon Russian uranium only in ten years. Russia covers about 30 percent of the EU's uranium needs, and is also a major supplier of uranium mining, processing, conversion and enrichment services for Washington, Bloomberg notes.
Earlier, American journalist Clayton Morris stated that Europe's nuclear energy is very dependent on Russian uranium, and the United States generally receives more than half of its uranium from Russia. In May, Newsweek wrote that the United States cannot do without Russian uranium. There are 93 reactors operating in the country, which generate a fifth of the total energy in the country. At the same time, a quarter of the nuclear fuel used by American reactors is supplied by Rosatom.
Source: https://ria.ru/20230824/uran-1891881128.html?ysclid=llqcnckvbe589939901 ; https://ria.ru/20230509/uran-1870612304.html?in=t ; https://news.mail.ru/politics/57574905/?mt_link_id=vcoic6&mt_sub3=234&utm_campaign=media&utm_partner_id=234&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fpulse.mail.ru&utm_source=pulse_mail_ru; ; https://rg.ru/2023/08/28/bloomberg-strany-zapada-polnostiu-zavisiat-ot-postavok-rossijskogo-urana.html?ysclid=llumxzmu1l938645246