China triples its uranium purchases from Russia.
China tripled its imports of enriched uranium from Russia between January and October 2024.
According to RIA Novosti's calculations based on Chinese customs data, China tripled its imports of Russian uranium between January and October 2024. If this trend continues, China will become Russia's main customer for uranium by the end of 2024.
In the first 10 months of this year, China purchased enriched uranium from Russia worth $849 million, 3.2 times more than in the same period of 2023. At the same time, the volume of deliveries in October doubled compared to September – reaching $216 million.
Russia was China's main supplier of uranium in 2024, in addition to China purchasing $68.3 million worth of the product from Kazakhstan.
In addition, South Korea has also increased its uranium purchases. In the first 10 months, the country imported $650 million worth of enriched uranium from Russia, making South Korea the second largest official importer of Russian uranium.
Meanwhile, the U.S. – Russia's main uranium buyer in 2023 – reduced its purchases in 2024. In the first nine months, these purchases totaled $574 million, down nearly 32% from the previous year. The U.S. imported a quarter of Russia's enriched uranium in 2023 to supply its domestic nuclear power plants.
One of the reasons for this is Russia's restrictions on uranium exports to the United States.
Russia accounted for 27% of the enriched uranium supplied to U.S. commercial nuclear reactors last year.
On November 15, Russia announced it had imposed temporary restrictions on the export of enriched uranium to the United States. The Russian statement said the temporary restrictions were a response to Washington's ban on imports of Russian uranium, which was signed into law earlier this year and is scheduled to take effect in August 2024.
However, Russia's new restrictions include exemptions that allow exports to continue until 2027 in case of supply concerns.
Russia is the world's sixth-largest producer of uranium and controls approximately 44% of global uranium enrichment capacity.