Five Nuclear States Agreed To Isolate Russia From Uranium Global Market
- 18.04.2023, 7:51
The United Kingdom, the USA, Canada, Japan and France have formed an alliance.
The five countries of the "nuclear club" of the G7 have agreed to put an end to Russia's dominance in the global nuclear energy markets. The British government published a statement.
The United Kingdom, the US, Canada, Japan and France have formed a nuclear alliance that aims to strike at Rosatom and push Russia out of global uranium supply chains.
“The five nations will leverage the respective resources and capabilities of each country’s civil nuclear power sectors to undermine Russia’s grip on supply chains,” the UK government wrote.
“This agreement will support the stable supply of fuels for the needs of today, as well as guarantee the safe and secure development and deployment of fuels for the advanced reactors of tomorrow,” UK Energy Security Secretary Grant Shapps said in a statement.
Despite a record number of Western sanctions against Russia, Kremlin’s state-owned nuclear giant, Rosatom, has remained the world’s biggest exporter of reactors and fuel, according to Bloomberg. The United States and its European allies have been estimating the possibility of imposing tough sanctions on the Russian nuclear sector for more than a year. However, blocking the supply of nuclear fuel from Russia can be extremely painful from an economic point of view.
The EU authorities discussed sanctions against Rosatom before agreeing on the tenth package of sanctions: some countries of the union insisted on the inclusion of the Russian state-owned corporation in the "negative list". However, countries dependent on Russian nuclear power, such as Hungary and Bulgaria, opposed the sanctions. France, one of the leaders of the European Union in nuclear energy, also expressed disagreement. As the Polish publication Polska Agencja Prasowa (PAP) wrote that Paris acted as the “biggest supporter” of Rosatom. The Czech Republic and Slovakia are also consuming the fuel of the Russian state corporation.
“The US nuclear industry also fell under some dependence on Rosatom: in 2021, the state corporation supplied to the United States about a quarter of the enriched uranium needed for 92 reactors,” Bloomberg emphasizes.
“We've allowed ourselves to become dependent on too few sources of supply. It will take four or five years to replace that capacity that the world has come to rely on,” said Dan Poneman, Chief Executive Officer of Centrus Energy Corp. This company aims to reboot the US uranium enrichment industry.
Nevertheless, last week Washington for the first time imposed sanctions against the subsidiaries of Rosatom. Restrictions included the Rusatom Overseas, which is responsible for promoting the state corporation's projects abroad, as well as the Vladimir Tochmash plant and the Kovrov Mechanical Plant, which produce centrifuges for uranium enrichment.
Only a few European countries, in particular Bulgaria, Finland and Slovakia, completely refused to supply Rosatom. At the same time, Rosatom is already entering into partnerships with countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.