In July 2025, Slovak state utility Slovenské elektrárne signed a landmark enriched uranium supply agreement with European nuclear fuel giant Urenco Group. This long-term contract, covering fuel supply for the Bohunice and Mochovce nuclear power plants into the 2030s, marks Urenco’s official entry into the Slovak market and—more importantly—a strategic maneuver within the European Union’s ongoing effort to reduce its dependency on Russian nuclear fuel.

(Image: Slovenske elecktrarne/Urenco)

• Nuclear Fuel Sovereignty: More Than Energy—It’s Geopolitical Autonomy

Urenco’s entry into Slovakia reflects a calculated step away from structural reliance on Russian nuclear fuel. All of Slovakia’s current nuclear reactors are Russian-designed VVER units, which creates a deep-rooted technical lock-in. For decades, this made Russia the default supplier. However, with mounting geopolitical risks, energy security has become synonymous with national sovereignty.

In this context, the deal with Urenco is not merely commercial—it’s a signal. Despite the technical and regulatory challenges involved in switching fuel suppliers, Slovakia is taking proactive steps toward diversifying its energy supply and aligning with Europe’s broader strategic ambitions. The message is clear: dependency, even when convenient, is no longer acceptable in an era where energy is weaponized.

• Urenco: The Strategic Spine of the Western Nuclear Fuel Architecture

Founded in 1970 and jointly owned by the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands, Urenco is one of the “Big Three” global uranium enrichment providers, alongside Russia’s Tenex and France’s Orano. Its gas centrifuge technology is known for its efficiency and reliability, and its facilities—located in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and the US—are central to the Western response to the nuclear fuel crisis.

Urenco is not only expanding its traditional enrichment capacity but also investing in the future of advanced fuels. Its Capenhurst facility in the UK is being upgraded to become Europe’s first commercial-scale producer of HALEU (High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium)—the next-generation fuel required by small modular and advanced reactors. At present, Russia is the only large-scale supplier of HALEU. Urenco’s pivot to HALEU production represents a strategic bid to own the technological high ground in the future of nuclear energy.

In short, Urenco is not just a fuel supplier—it’s becoming the strategic enabler of a post-Russia nuclear order in Europe.

• Structural Challenges to Europe’s Fuel Diversification Agenda

While the political consensus in the EU is firmly in favor of decoupling from Russian nuclear supplies, executing this vision is fraught with challenges:

1. Technological Lock-in: Many reactors in Slovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria are designed for Russian VVER fuel, meaning any shift requires costly, time-consuming technical modifications and safety approvals.

2. Russian Price Advantage: Rosatom’s subsidiary Tenex offers highly competitive pricing—often below market rates—making it commercially hard to replace without significant subsidies or regulatory support.

3. Enrichment Capacity Gaps: As of 2024, Russia still controls approximately 43% of global enrichment capacity. Even with ongoing expansions, Urenco and Orano combined cannot fully offset this dominance in the short term.

Thus, Slovakia’s contract with Urenco is not just a forward-looking insurance policy—it’s an early move to buy time and reduce exposure while the rest of Europe catches up.

• The Bigger Picture: Russia, China, and the Invisible Hand in Global Fuel Flows

While Europe rewires its nuclear supply lines, Russia and China are quietly reinforcing theirs. Between 2022 and 2023, China significantly increased its imports of enriched uranium from Russia, likely stockpiling for its rapidly growing reactor fleet.

More strategically, evidence suggests that some of this Russian-origin uranium may be re-exported by China to Western markets, potentially circumventing sanctions and weakening the effectiveness of Western containment efforts. This raises questions about the opacity of global uranium flows and the potential for state-led geopolitical arbitrage in the nuclear supply chain.

In this shadow game, China is positioning itself not just as a buyer—but increasingly as a geopolitical broker in nuclear fuel markets, with the capacity to balance, delay, or accelerate Western diversification plans.

• One Contract, A Signal of Systemic Realignment

The Slovakia-Urenco agreement represents far more than a single fuel supply deal. It symbolizes a tectonic shift in the global nuclear energy order—where fuel is no longer just a commodity, but a geopolitical asset.

In today’s high-stakes energy landscape, enriched uranium is not only about reactor uptime—it is about national agency, political alignment, and strategic deterrence. The new nuclear supply ecosystem will not be shaped solely by market logic. It will be determined by trust, capacity, and technological foresight.

As HALEU, SMRs, and hybrid supply chains become the next battleground, the ability to build and control sovereign enrichment and fabrication capabilities will define tomorrow’s energy leaders. Slovakia’s deal with Urenco may seem modest in scale—but its timing, intent, and symbolism suggest it could be the first in a cascade of strategic realignments across Europe and beyond.