From Uzbekistan to Canada: A look at India’s global uranium hunt

India’s push to rapidly expand nuclear power is increasingly turning into a race to secure the uranium needed to fuel its future reactors.

With the government targeting 100 GW of nuclear capacity by 2047, India is pursuing uranium supplies across Central Asia, Australia and North America while also exploring overseas mining assets, according to an analysis by the Times of India. The strategy is unfolding alongside a major change in domestic nuclear policy that is expected to bring private companies into power generation.

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The latest move came during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Uzbekistan last month, when the two countries agreed to work towards a long-term framework for uranium supplies.

The development was part of a broader effort to strengthen energy cooperation between the two countries. Modi told delegates in Tashkent that India would establish a long-term arrangement for uranium supply.

The uranium discussions assume significance because India’s nuclear expansion plans will require substantially more fuel than the country currently produces domestically.

India’s nuclear expansion creates a fuel challenge

India currently operates 24 nuclear reactors with a combined capacity of about 8.78 GW.

The Centre’s Nuclear Energy Mission, announced in the Union Budget for 2025-26, aims to take nuclear power capacity to 100 GW by 2047. The government has set an intermediate target of about 22 GW by 2031-32.

Industry estimates suggest that a 100-GW nuclear fleet could require around 18,000-20,000 tonnes of natural uranium every year. That would amount to roughly a third of current global uranium mine production.

India has uranium reserves in Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Meghalaya, but domestic availability has historically been a constraint for the country’s civil nuclear programme.

For years, India addressed the shortfall through government-to-government supply agreements. With the scale of the planned nuclear expansion increasing sharply, securing multiple sources of uranium has now become a more important part of its energy strategy.

The country is consequently looking beyond traditional supply arrangements and building relationships with some of the world’s major uranium producers.

Uzbekistan deal marks a longer-term shift

India’s uranium relationship with Uzbekistan dates back to 2019.

In January that year, India and Uzbekistan signed a contract under which state-owned Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Company agreed to supply 1,100 metric tonnes of natural uranium concentrate to India through 2026.

Parliamentary records show India had received around 600 metric tonnes of the contracted quantity by March 2025.

The latest discussions in Tashkent point towards a more enduring arrangement rather than simply extending the earlier transaction.

Siby George, secretary (west) in the Ministry of External Affairs, was quoted by PTI as saying that positive discussions had taken place on a long-term uranium supply arrangement and that the two sides were closing in on signing it.

No new uranium-specific agreement was among the 11 agreements formally signed during Modi’s visit. The long-term framework is still being finalised.

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The broader signal, however, is significant for India’s fuel strategy: Uzbekistan, one of the world’s major uranium producers, is being retained as a long-term source as India seeks to diversify its supply base.

Australia opens another source of uranium

India is also strengthening its uranium cooperation with Australia.

In July, the two countries finalised an Administrative Arrangement under their 2014 Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement. The arrangement was concluded during the Third India-Australia Annual Summit in Melbourne.

It provides the framework for long-term Australian uranium exports to India under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

Australia has more than a third of the world’s known uranium resources, giving India access to one of the largest resource bases globally.

The Australian arrangement therefore adds another major source to India’s nuclear fuel strategy as it prepares for a substantial increase in reactor capacity.

Canada deal brings long-term supply

India has also secured a major commercial supply arrangement with Canada.

In March, Canada's Cameco Corporation and India’s Department of Atomic Energy signed a nine-year agreement worth about $2.6 billion for the supply of nearly 22 million pounds of uranium ore concentrate between 2027 and 2035.

The deal was signed during Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit to India. Both governments described it as a key component of a renewed strategic energy partnership.

The Cameco agreement gives India visibility over uranium supplies for several years and adds another major supplier to the country’s expanding fuel-security network.

But India is looking beyond simply purchasing uranium.

India wants a stake in uranium mines

NTPC, India’s largest power producer, is exploring the possibility of investing directly in overseas uranium assets.

The company, which has been tasked with developing roughly 30 GW of the country’s planned 100-GW nuclear capacity, has issued a tender to appoint consultants to help identify uranium mining assets where it could invest.

The countries being considered include Canada, Australia, Kazakhstan and South Africa.

The move points to a broader shift in India’s approach to nuclear fuel security. Instead of relying entirely on long-term purchase contracts, Indian state-owned companies are looking at securing equity exposure to uranium resources themselves.

The Uzbekistan, Australia and Canada initiatives, along with the overseas mining push, together indicate an effort to diversify both the sources and forms of uranium supply.

Domestic nuclear reforms could drive demand

India’s international search for uranium is taking place alongside a major change in its domestic nuclear sector.

In December 2025, Parliament passed the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India, or SHANTI, Act, ending the six-decade-old state monopoly over civil nuclear power generation.

The legislation allows private companies to build, own and operate nuclear power plants for the first time.

The government, however, continues to retain control over sensitive parts of the nuclear fuel cycle, including uranium enrichment, heavy-water production and long-term spent-fuel management.

The legislation has already triggered interest from some of India’s biggest industrial groups.

A tender floated by state-run Nuclear Power Corporation of India for co-developing 220 MWe Bharat Small Reactors has attracted interest from Reliance Industries, Adani Power, Tata Power, Hindalco Industries, Jindal Steel and Power and JSW Energy.

For these companies, nuclear power could provide a source of captive, round-the-clock electricity for energy-intensive businesses such as steel, cement and data centres.

Tata Power has also set a target of 2032-33 for commissioning what would be India’s first privately built nuclear plant. The company has been scouting sites in Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Gujarat, with construction potentially beginning as early as 2028.

That creates a direct link between India’s domestic nuclear reforms and its international uranium hunt: expanding the number of reactors and bringing private players into the sector will increase the importance of securing dependable fuel supplies.

Thorium is the longer-term answer

India’s uranium strategy is also linked to a much longer-term ambition to develop a nuclear fuel cycle based increasingly on thorium.

The country has for decades followed a three-stage nuclear programme aimed at eventually making greater use of its large thorium resources.

The programme envisages a transition from uranium-fuelled reactors to fast breeder reactors and, ultimately, reactors that can use uranium-233 produced from thorium.

The Department of Atomic Energy describes thorium-232 as a material that can be converted into fissile uranium-233 for the third stage of the programme.

A key milestone came this year when the 500 MWe Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor at Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu achieved first criticality.

The DAE has described the PFBR as the flagship of the second stage of India’s three-stage nuclear programme. In this stage, thorium-232 can be converted through transmutation into uranium-233, which can then provide fuel for the third stage.

However, the technology does not immediately remove India’s need for uranium.

The PFBR represents part of a longer transition, while the nuclear expansion planned for the coming decades will still require conventional reactors and dependable access to uranium fuel.

This leaves India pursuing two tracks simultaneously: securing uranium for the nuclear capacity it wants to build now, while developing technologies that could eventually make its nuclear fuel cycle more self-reliant.

The uranium race is only beginning

The agreements and initiatives with Uzbekistan, Australia and Canada are important, but none of them individually is enough to meet the fuel requirements implied by India’s 100-GW nuclear target.

Instead, they form part of a broader strategy to diversify suppliers, secure long-term contracts and explore direct investments in uranium-producing assets.

At the same time, the SHANTI Act and the Bharat Small Reactor programme are creating the conditions for a larger domestic nuclear industry, with several major private companies showing interest in the sector.

The challenge is to ensure that the availability of fuel keeps pace with the planned expansion in generation capacity.

India’s nuclear ambitions therefore depend on more than building reactors. They also require a reliable uranium supply chain spanning domestic production, long-term international contracts and potentially overseas mining investments.

The longer-term thorium programme could eventually reduce that dependence, but it is not an immediate substitute for uranium.

For now, India’s nuclear expansion and its global search for uranium are moving together. The success of the 100-GW ambition will depend in part on how quickly that fuel-security strategy can translate into reliable supplies for the reactors India plans to build.

(With inputs from TOI)