Kazakhstan’s nuclear resources company Kazatomprom said on Tuesday that Russia’s Rosatom was selling its stakes in some uranium deposits which the two groups had been developing together to Chinese-owned companies.
Kazatomprom, listed in London and Kazakhstan, is the world’s largest producer of uranium and has the largest reserve base. It accounted for 20% of global primary uranium production in 2023, but lacks its own uranium processing capacity.
Rosatom used to have stakes in 6 of 14 Kazatomprom’s deposits, receiving a share of the output in a deal that complicated the Kazakh firm’s sales to the West.
Kazatomprom, which has flagged sanctions risks associated with Rosatom to its investors, said that Rosatom unit, Uranium One Group, had sold its 49.979% stake in the Zarechnoye mine to SNURDC Astana Mining Company Limited, whose ultimate beneficiary is China’s State Nuclear Uranium Resources Development Company.
Uranium One Group is also expected to give up 30% in the Khorasan-U joint venture to China Uranium Development Company Limited, the ultimate beneficiary of which is China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN, China), Kazatomprom said.
Kazatomprom’s said its stakes will remain unchanged, while Rosatom had no immediate comment.
China is the biggest buyer of Kazakhstan’s uranium. After the Khorasan-U stake sale Rosatom will still have stakes in Kazatomprom deposits, with combined reserves of 255,000 tons.
This includes the Budennovskoye deposit, one of the world’s largest, that Rosatom acquired under a deal disclosed in 2023.
Zarechnoye’s uranium reserves amounted to approximately 3,500 tons at the beginning of 2024, Kazatomprom said.
Sanctions risks
Khorasan-U operates at the Kharasan-1 block of Severny Kharasan deposit in the Zhanakorgan district of the Kyzylorda region. Uranium reserves of the deposit amounted to about 33,000 tons at the beginning of 2024, with an expected maturity in 2038, Kazatomprom said.
Uranium One produced 4,831 tonnes of uranium in Kazakhstan in 2023. Russia is the world’s sixth largest uranium producer and controls about 44% of global uranium enrichment capacity.
Rosatom says that when its production in Kazakhstan is included the company ranked third in the world by production volume in 2023.
Kazatomprom’s chief executive Meirzhan Yussupov told the FT in September that sanctions imposed on Russia because of the Ukraine conflict made it difficult to sell uranium to Western buyers.
Kazatomprom sells 29% of its output to Europe, according to the company’s documents.
The company outlined the risks in its latest annual report, stressing that although Rosatom was not directly targeted, some of its companies as well as senior Russian nuclear power industry executives were under Western sanctions.
“There are also risks associated with Russian partners in the group’s subsidiaries, associates and joint ventures, including reputational and corporate governance risks,” it said.
Rosatom has also expressed interest in building Kazakhstan’s first nuclear power plant, aimed at phasing out polluting coal.
(By Guy Faulconbridge, Anastasia Lyrchikova and Gleb Bryanski; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Alexander Smith)
