BAKU, Azerbaijan, December 27. Uzbekistan is well-positioned to benefit from the ‘nuclear renaissance’ as more countries turn to nuclear energy in light of environmental and geopolitical concerns, Bryn Windsor, Senior Eurasia Analyst at PRISM Political Risk Management agency told Trend.
The analyst stressed that the broad market opinion is that uranium demand is set to increase significantly in the 2030s.
“If Uzbekistan can develop its uranium industry by this point and prove itself to be a reliable and prolific uranium supplier, then the windfall for the Uzbek economy will be great,” he said.
Windsor noted that last year, Uzbekistan announced its plans to double annual uranium production from 3,500 tons currently to 7,100 tons by 2030.
“The primary challenge will, therefore, be developing new reserves to provide this new capacity. In 2018, an intergovernmental agreement was inked between Uzbekistan and Russia, outlining their collaboration in erecting nuclear power plants within Uzbek regions.
The agreement stipulates the establishment of a nuclear facility featuring two power generation units, each with a 1200 MW capacity, under the auspices of the Rosatom Corporation. Nevertheless, there is a risk that the breach of a contract would put Uzbekistan in a difficult place, given its reliance on the Russian company for expertise,” he said.
Earlier this year, speaking at the Innoprom Central Asia International Industrial Exhibition held in Tashkent, Deputy Minister of Mining and Geology of Uzbekistan Omonullo Nasritdinkhodzhayev said that Uzbekistan plans to double the volume of uranium production by 2030, bringing it from 3,600 in 2022 to 7,100 by the end of the designated period.
A trilateral agreement has been signed between Uzbekistan’s State Committee for Geology and Mineral Resources, Uzbekistan’s Navoiuran state enterprise, and the French Orano in November 2022.
The document provides for the intensification of joint work on the extraction and processing of uranium, as well as building an industrial chain for the production of nuclear fuel.
