Uranium: Where It Comes From, Who Mines It, and Why the U.S. Supply Is Fragile

Interest in nuclear power is rising: utilities want more varied baseload power and greater energy security, and new designs such as small modular reactors (SMRs) could power remote places, industry and artificial intelligence data centers. If SMRs spread as widely as hoped, demand for uranium — the fuel — will likely grow.

What uranium is

Uranium is a naturally occurring, weakly radioactive element found in rock, soil and seawater and, in traces, in ordinary plants — one of the more common elements in Earth's crust. It decays over time, giving off alpha particles and energy, which makes it the main fuel for nuclear fission reactors.

It concentrates in at least 15 distinct kinds of deposit. The most economic and productive worldwide are deposits in sandstone — the most important type in the United States — deposits along geologic unconformities, and deposits tied to intrusive igneous rocks.

What it is used for

Nuclear power supplies about 20% of U.S. and 10% of global electricity. That energy also heats cities, desalinates seawater, produces hydrogen, drives nuclear icebreakers and some merchant ships, and makes radioisotopes for medicine. Uranium may become essential for SMRs serving data centers and industrial sites and backing up renewable energy.

From mine to reactor

Figure 1. The stages of the uranium and nuclear fuel supply chain, based on the IAEA, the World Nuclear Association and others. USGS

How uranium is bought

There is no central exchange as there is for oil or metals, and deals are opaque. About 85% of uranium is bought on long-term contracts of 2–10 years, commonly 3–5, mostly by utilities negotiating directly with miners and processors. The utility then owns the uranium and hires each processing step as a service. Besides freshly mined uranium, secondary supplies — stockpiles, recycled fuel, material from dismantled nuclear weapons — have at times mattered a great deal.

After Fukushima, reactor closures, phase-outs and delays in Europe and Asia left a glut that depressed prices and exploration. Since 2020 the market has been shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic, new uranium investment funds, and the war in Ukraine — and in 2023 by a coup in Niger, a leading supplier, which disrupted mines and delayed projects.

Who mines it

Figure 2. World uranium production against reactor requirements, 1945–2025. USGS, from NEA/IAEA and World Nuclear Association data

In 2023, 17 countries mined uranium. Kazakhstan produced about 39% — almost as much as Canada, Namibia and Australia combined. With Uzbekistan and Russia, six countries produced more than 90%; adding China, Niger and India, nine produced about 99%.

Figure 3. Where the world's uranium was mined in 2023 (141.2 million lb U₃O₈). Twelve countries produced 99.8%. USGS, from NEA/IAEA data

The countries with the most uranium in the ground, the most mined and the most used are different. In 2022, Australia had the largest recoverable resources, Kazakhstan the largest production, and the United States the highest demand.

The United States: big user, small producer

In 2024 seven operations produced it: four in-situ recovery operations in Wyoming, two in Texas, and one ore mill in Utah. Three more were on standby, four permitted and licensed, one under construction, two in development and one being restored — in Texas, Wyoming, South Dakota and Nebraska. Production is projected to pass 4 million lb by 2030.

• Resources: 468.1 million lb of economically recoverable, reasonably assured U₃O₈ at the end of 2024. USGS assessments estimate a mean of 220 million lb of recoverable uranium still undiscovered in sandstone deposits of the Texas Coastal Plain (2015), and 40 million lb in place in calcrete deposits of the Southern High Plains of Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma (2017); more assessments are planned.
• Investment: exploration and mine development spending rose from $72.5 million (2020) to $160.0 million (2023). Drilling in 2023 was the most since 2013, and in 2024 about 50% more holes and 20% more footage were drilled.

Figure 4. U.S. uranium resource regions and recent USGS assessments. USGS

Buying abroad

In 2023, U.S. civilian reactors bought 51.6 million lb of U₃O₈ equivalent — 27% more than in 2022 and the most since 2015. About 95% came from abroad:

Reactors are expected to need 433 million lb over 2025–35.

Figure 5. U.S. uranium from domestic and foreign sources, 1949–2024. USGS, from EIA data

Supply-chain risks

The risks come in several kinds:

1. Geopolitical — instability and international tension.
2. Regulatory — tighter environmental and safety rules.
3. Resource base — how large and lasting the deposits behind a project are.
4. Operational and technical — mining and processing methods, delays, restarts.
5. Product dependency — uranium recovered as a by-product depends on mining something else, such as gold in South Africa or copper in Australia.
6. Currency — exchange rates affect profits and project values.
7. Transportation — reliance on ships, trucks and rail, which can refuse radioactive cargo.

Add cyclical prices, opaque contracts and trade barriers such as tariffs, and supply becomes hard to rely on.

For the United States, the danger is dependence on foreign suppliers and single points of failure — one of the measures used for the 2025 U.S. List of Critical Minerals:

These weaknesses make uranium important to national security, energy resilience and technological leadership — which is why the government has committed $2.7 billion and new policy to rebuild domestic capacity.

Sources

Based on Mihalasky M, "Uranium — Deposits, production and resources, market dynamics, and supply chain risks," U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2025–3057, U.S. Geological Survey; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The fact sheet gives U.S. production as about 1.4% of domestic reactor requirements in its text and under 1% in its summary, and names the four non-U.S. conversion-and-enrichment players inconsistently with its list of conversion plants; those claims are left out.