The deal was agreed between the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during their meeting in London last week.
“The agreement also supports UK jobs and exports, with more than a third of the uranium content originating from Urenco’s processing plant in the North-West of England,” a UK government statement said. “Urenco employs more than 650 people in the UK and its work at its Chester site supports more than 4,500 jobs around the UK in the wider supply chain.”
The financing, backed by UK Export Finance, builds on a previous two-year deal to supply nuclear fuel to Ukraine.
In November 2023, Urenco agreed to continue supplying Energoatom with enriched uranium until 2035, with an option to extend the contract to 2043.
In 2024, Energoatom agreed a loan of EUR181 million (USD210 million) from Deutsche Bank AG and Barclays Bank PLC under the guarantees of UK Export Finance. Energoatom noted that it fully and on time fulfilled its financial obligations to its partner Urenco in 2024–2025.
Energoatom has a number of contracts for the supply of nuclear materials – enriched and natural uranium hexafluoride. In particular, Canada’s Cameco will ensure the supply of uranium until 2035, which will be enriched by the UK’s Urenco.
Urenco, a UK-Dutch-German company, has worked with Energoatom since 2009. Energoatom’s sole supplier for fuel assemblies for its power plants has been Westinghouse Electric Sweden, with the enriched uranium used for that fuel manufacture supplied by Urenco. The previous supply contracts with Urenco – for enriched uranium product and natural uranium hexafluoride – expired in 2025.
Ukraine has 15 reactors – including the six at Zaporizhzhia which have been under Russian military control since early March 2022 – whose combined capacity generates about half of its electricity. The country is looking to the West for new nuclear capacity, large and small, including an agreement with Westinghouse to build nine AP1000 reactors at established sites.
