Britain seeks to destroy the Russian monopoly on the nuclear fuel market.

Britain has stepped up its efforts to destroy the Russian Federation’s monopoly on the uranium fuel market, which plays a key role in powering the new generation of small modular reactors.

The Kremlin’s nuclear giant Rosatom is currently the world’s only commercial supplier of uranium, known as HALEU. This fuel mix has a higher concentration of the uranium isotopes needed to sustain fission, allowing companies to refuel less often and potentially lower their operating costs.

The UK government will allocate $246M to the Urenco consortium – the world’s second-largest uranium enricher – to build a HALEU production line at its facility in Capenhurst, England. Thus, Britain will become the first European country to produce modern nuclear fuel. Urenco’s new plant will be ready to start producing 10 tones of HALEU per year by 2031.