Ukraine wants to produce up to 800 mt/year of uranium: minister

Ukraine is seeking to produce 750-800 metric tons/year of uranium content as part of its efforts to increase its energy security and resilience, Energy Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said at an industry conference in Paris.

Speaking Sept. 17 at the Roadmaps to New Nuclear 2026 conference organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Nuclear Energy Agency, Shmyhal said that if Ukraine were to produce 800 mtU/yr, this would represent 30% of the country's annual nuclear fuel needs.

He did not say when Ukraine might reach the higher production level, and the energy ministry did not respond to a request for details Sept. 18.

Prior to Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the country produced about 800 mtU/year, but production has since fallen sharply. For instance, Ukraine produced 800 mtU in 2019, 744 mtU in 2020 and 455 mtU in 2021, according to statistics from the World Nuclear Association. However, the country produced only 100 mtU in 2022, 340 mtU in 2023 and 288 mtU in 2024, the WNA said.

Shmyhal said that increased domestic uranium production was part of a wider Ukrainian government effort to build up a secure supply chain for the country's nuclear power industry, running from uranium mining through to electricity generation.

Shmyhal, according to multiple Ukrainian media reports, including in the UA.News website, in comments July 9 said state nuclear company Energoatom had extended a loan for 555 million hryvnias ($12.5 million) to the Ukrainian uranium mining and processing company SkhidGZK for immediate upgrades to the company's facilities. The planned work includes equipment purchase and tunneling work to upgrade production and the design and eventual construction of a new sulfuric acid plant, the reports quoted Shmyhal as saying.

The OECD's Nuclear Energy Agency and the International Atomic Energy Agency said in their 2026 uranium resource report Sept. 14 that Ukraine seeks to expand uranium production through better exploitation of existing resources as well as stepped-up exploration and discovery of new resources. Ukraine' current production is from two underground mines, with material processed at a mill in the Dnipropetrovsk region in southeastern Ukraine, the report said.

Securing the nuclear fuel supply chain includes domestic Ukrainian manufacturing of components for Westinghouse VVER fuel, as well as the creation within Ukraine of the capacity to assemble nuclear fuel, according to Shmyhal.

Ukraine has 15 reactors with a combined 13.835 GW capacity, but six of these units are at the 6-GW Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in eastern Ukraine. The facility has not operated since it was occupied by the Russians in March 2022, although power is maintained to the plant to cool spent nuclear fuel stored on site.

Shmyhal also noted that Ukraine had been the first country in Eastern Europe to load Westinghouse fuel into Russian VVER-1000 and VVER-440 reactors.

"The lesson of the war is that abandoning Russian nuclear fuel is technically possible," he said.