![]() ![]() Many of the countries that import processed fuel from Russia are now reconsidering, with CEZ, the Czech state-owned electric utility, recently announcing it would obtain its fuel supplies for its Temelin nuclear power plant (NPP) from Westinghouse and Framatome from 2024. TVEL operates worldwide, supplying nuclear fuel to 73 VVER reactors inside Russia and in other countries, including Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, China, India and Iran, making up around 16% of the world market in 2020. These are in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Finland Indeed, 18 out of 103 reactors in the EU, or 10% of EU nuclear capacity, use Russian fuel under contract with TVEL. Russia is a major supplier of processed nuclear fuel to Russian-built reactors across Central and Eastern Europe and holds direct supply contracts with utilities and plant operators. However, all is not lost, as in various segments of the value chain, from uranium mining and milling, conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication, various Western manufacturing companies can over time start producing replacements to overcome that supply challenge.įor example, Westinghouse already has a joint venture with Kazatomprom to provide fuel that can be used in Russian-designed VVER reactors. ![]() They are at risk of operational difficulties or even outages without materials, equipment and services to maintain them.Įven the US relies on Russia for 16% of its uranium, with another 30% from Russian allies Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The Centre on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University said in a recent paper that countries such as Finland, the Czech Republic, Turkey and Ukraine have Russian reactors in operation or under construction. This would make many reactors, especially in Central and Eastern Europe but also in Western Europe and the US, vulnerable to supply problems that could take reactors offline. What this means is that Russia has the capability in several segments of the nuclear value chain to make a particular service or material scarce or difficult to source. Russia may only supply 6% of the global raw uranium market, but it controls 40% of the conversion market – where uranium oxide, or yellowcake, is converted into uranium hexafluoride – and 46% of the enrichment market, where the U-235 content in raised to 3-5%, allowing nuclear fuel to be formed.Īlso, Russia is prominent is many stages of the global nuclear fuel cycle through various state-owned companies grouped under the Rosatom umbrella. The issue has the potential to turn into a fuel crisis with parallels to the current gas crisis, with countries now needing to look for alternatives and the Kremlin using both raw uranium 235 and finished fuel to apply political and economic pressure. Europe’s nuclear power sector is starting to worry about its fuel stocks as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is calling into question the security of uranium supplies and processing services provided by Russia.
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