Uranium purchases and prices

Owners and operators of U.S. civilian nuclear power reactors (civilian owner/operators, or COOs) purchased a total of 51.6 million pounds U₃O₈e (equivalent¹) of deliveries from U.S. suppliers and foreign suppliers during 2023, at a weighted-average price of $43.80 per pound U₃O₈e. The 2023 total of 51.6 million pounds U₃O₈e was 27% higher than the 2022 total of 40.5 million pounds U₃O₈e. The 2023 weighted-average price of $43.80 per pound U₃O₈e was 12% higher than the 2022 weighted-average price of $39.08 per pound U₃O₈e (Table 1) and the highest price since 2015.

The largest sources of uranium delivered in 2023 was of foreign-origin with Canada the top source at 27% of total deliveries, followed closely by Australia and Kazakhstan with 22% of total deliveries each. Russian-origin material accounted for 12% of total deliveries and Uzbekistan-origin material accounted for 10% of total deliveries. United States material accounted for 5% of total deliveries in 2023, the same percentage as 2022 (Table 3).

COOs purchased three material types of uranium for 2023 deliveries from 20 sellers (Table 4, Table 24). During 2023, 15% of the uranium delivered was purchased under spot contracts at a weighted-average price of $51.64 per pound. The remaining 85% was purchased under long-term contracts at a weighted-average price of $42.42 per pound (Table 7). Spot contracts are contracts with a one-time uranium delivery (usually) for the entire contract, and the delivery typically occurs within one year of contract execution (signed date). Long-term contracts are contracts with one or more uranium deliveries to occur at least a year following the contract execution (signed date) and as such may reflect some agreements of short and medium terms as well as longer term.

New and future uranium contracts

In 2023, COOs signed 26 new purchase contracts with deliveries in 2023 of 5.5 million pounds U₃O₈e at a weighted-average price of $61.93 per pound (Table 8).

COOs report minimum and maximum quantities of future deliveries under contract to allow for the option of either decreasing or increasing quantities. At the end of 2023, the maximum uranium deliveries for 2024 through 2033 under existing purchase contracts for COOs totaled 249 million pounds U₃O₈e (Table 10). Also at the end of 2023, unfilled uranium market requirements for 2024 through 2033 totaled 184 million pounds U₃O₈e (Table 11). These contracted deliveries and unfilled market requirements combined represent the maximum anticipated market requirements of 433 million pounds U₃O₈e over the next 10 years for COOs.

Uranium feed, enrichment services, uranium loaded

In 2023, COOs delivered 34 million pounds U₃O₈e of natural uranium feed to U.S. and foreign enrichers. U.S. enrichment suppliers received 39% of the feed, and the remaining 61% was delivered to foreign enrichment suppliers (Table 13). Fifteen million separative work units (SWU)² were purchased under enrichment services contracts from eight sellers in 2023 (Table 16, Table 25). The average price paid by the COOs for the 15 million SWU was $106.97 per SWU in 2023, up 6% from the $101.03 per SWU paid in 2022. In 2023, the U.S.-origin SWU share was 28%, and the foreign-origin SWU accounted for the remaining 72%. Foreign-origin SWU included 27% from Russia, 12% from France, 8% from the Netherlands, 7% from the United Kingdom, and 6% from Germany (Table 16).

Uranium in fuel assemblies loaded into U.S. civilian nuclear power reactors during 2023 contained 43.9 million pounds U₃O₈, slightly lower than the 44.4 million pounds loaded in 2022 (Table 18).

Uranium foreign purchases/sales and inventories

U.S. suppliers (brokers, converters, enrichers, fabricators, producers, and traders) and COOs purchase uranium each year from foreign suppliers. Together, foreign purchases totaled 32 million pounds U₃O₈e in 2023, and the weighted-average price was $41.88 per pound U₃O₈e (Table 19). U.S. suppliers and COOs also sold uranium to foreign suppliers. Together, foreign sales totaled 1.4 million pounds U3O8e in 2023, and the weighted-average price was $71.56 per pound U₃O₈e (Table 21).

Year-end commercial uranium inventories represent ownership of uranium in different stages of the nuclear fuel cycle (in-process for conversion, enrichment, or fabrication) at domestic or foreign nuclear fuel facilities. Total U.S. commercial inventories (including inventories owned by COOs, U.S. brokers, converters, enrichers, fabricators, producers, and traders) were 152 million pounds U₃O₈e at the end of 2023, a 6% increase from the 143.1 million pounds at the end of 2022. Commercial uranium inventories owned at the end of 2023 by COOs totaled 110 million pounds U₃O₈e, 7% higher than the 102.4 million pounds in inventories held at the end of 2022. Uranium inventories owned by U.S. suppliers (converters, enrichers, fabricators, producers, brokers and traders) totaled 42.1 million pounds U₃O₈e at the end of 2023, up 3% from 2022 year-end levels (Table 22).

Footnote

¹Uranium quantities are expressed in the unit of measure U₃O₈e (equivalent). U₃O₈e is triuranium octoxide (or uranium concentrate) and the equivalent uranium-component of uranium hexafluoride (UF₆) and enriched uranium.

²Separative work unit (SWU): The standard measure of enrichment services. The effort expended in separating a mass F of feed of assay x_f into a mass P of product assay x_p and waste of mass W and assay x_w is expressed in terms of the number of separative work units needed, given by the expression SWU = WV(x_w) + PV(x_p) - FV(x_f), where V(_x) is the value function, defined as V(_x) = (1 - 2x) 1n((1 - x)/x).