China triples uranium purchases from Russia

According to RIA Novosti 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 bought enriched uranium from Russia for $849 million, 3.2 times more than in the same period in 2023. At the same time, the number of deliveries in October doubled compared to September - to $216 million.

Russia is the main supplier of uranium to China in 2024, in addition to China buying an additional $68.3 million worth of the product from Kazakhstan.

In addition, South Korea has also increased its uranium purchases. In the past 10 months, the country has imported US$650 million worth of enriched uranium from Russia, making South Korea the second-largest importer of Russian uranium.

Meanwhile, the US, the main buyer of Russian uranium in 2023, has reduced its purchases in 2024. In nine months, the purchases amounted to $574 million, down nearly 32% from a year earlier. The US imported a quarter of Russia's enriched uranium in 2023 to serve its domestic nuclear power plants.

One reason for this is Russia's restrictions on uranium exports to the United States.

Russia accounted for 27% of the enriched uranium supplied to US commercial nuclear reactors last year.

Russia announced on November 15 that it had imposed temporary restrictions on the export of enriched uranium to the United States. The Russian statement said the temporary restrictions imposed by Moscow were a response to Washington's ban on the import of Russian uranium, which was signed into law earlier this year and will take effect from August 2024.

However, Russia's new restrictions include exemptions that allow exports to continue in case of supply concerns until 2027.

Russia is the world's sixth-largest uranium producer and controls about 44% of global uranium enrichment capacity.