Sometimes, a good way to build an investment thesis is to look at the direction history is taking, and then think a few steps ahead.
That is what we are going to do today.
Take Russia, the war in Ukraine, and the confrontation between Russia and the West, which has continued to spread into more areas of the economy.
This has already caused some major changes.
Europe has had to rearm. Russian oligarchs have had assets frozen. Governments and businesses have had to rethink supply chains they previously took for granted.
One consequence runs through all of this: the West wants to reduce its dependence on Russia.
Energy is an obvious part of that.
But there is one dependency that deserves more attention: uranium enrichment.
And that is the subject I want to explore with you today.
In 2025, global uranium requirements were estimated at 68,920 tonnes.
But uranium has to pass through several industrial stages before it can become usable fuel for most nuclear reactors: conversion, enrichment, and fuel fabrication.
And in 2025, Russia’s Rosatom accounted for an estimated 43% of the world’s uranium enrichment capacity.
That is considerable.
We are talking about global capacity.
The United States illustrates how significant this dependency remains.
In 2025, American nuclear utilities purchased 12.7 million separative work units, or SWU—the unit used to measure enrichment services—at an average price of $108.70 per SWU.
That represents approximately $1.38 billion in enrichment purchases.
Russia supplied 26% of the services purchased.
So this is a Western dependency with a real industrial chain behind it—and real money flowing through it.
The interesting part comes when we think about what reducing that dependency actually requires.
Governments can announce sanctions or set a deadline. But replacing a supplier requires another supplier with the technology, the licences, the facilities, and the capacity to deliver.
Those capabilities take years to build.
This is where the investment thesis begins.
When countries decide to change where they buy something strategically essential, they can create demand for new industrial capacity—even before total demand for the product increases.
In this case, that means new contracts, new investment, and potentially more value for the companies capable of supplying an alternative.
There is a useful paradox here: the world still has excess enrichment capacity overall, yet Western buyers are supporting the construction of more.
The location of that capacity—and who controls it—has become part of its economic value.
That is what I want to investigate with you today: how the effort to reduce dependence on Russian nuclear fuel is reshaping the industry, and where the resulting investment opportunities might be.
The rebuilding has already started
We can already see this shift turning into investment.
In January 2026, the U.S. Department of Energy announced $2.7 billion to strengthen domestic uranium enrichment over the next ten years.
The funding supports capacity for both the existing reactor fleet and future advanced reactors, with payments tied to specific milestones.
In France, Orano is investing more than €1.7 billion to expand its Georges Besse II enrichment plant.
The project will add approximately 2.5 million SWU of annual capacity. The new units are expected to start operating progressively in 2028, with full commissioning planned for 2030.
And Urenco’s order book reached €27.3 billion at the end of June 2026, up from €21.3 billion six months earlier.
Those contracts extend into the 2040s.
These figures measure different things: public funding, industrial investment, and future contracted revenue. But together, they show the same direction.
Buyers are making commitments that support the construction of an alternative fuel supply chain.
That matters because an enrichment plant requires substantial investment long before it starts delivering fuel.
A customer willing to commit for years can help make that investment possible.
This is one of the things I look for when researching an emerging investment thesis: the point where a strategic ambition starts becoming a commercial commitment.
Announcements tell us what governments and companies want to do.
Contracts help us understand what they are prepared to pay for.
Two forces are now moving through the same industry
The first is the effort to diversify away from Russian supply.
The second is the potential growth of nuclear power itself.
The World Nuclear Association’s reference scenario projects annual uranium requirements rising from approximately 68,920 tonnes in 2025 to more than 150,000 tonnes by 2040.
That would be an increase of roughly 118%.
This is a scenario, and its realization will depend on reactor construction, operating lifetimes, policy, and financing.
But it gives us a useful way to frame the opportunity.
The industry may have to support a larger nuclear fleet while also changing where part of its fuel comes from.
And these two forces operate on different timelines.
Diversification concerns reactors that are already running and need to secure future deliveries. Growth adds demand as new reactors enter service.
The investment opportunity is in how those needs become revenue.
An established supplier might benefit by signing new contracts, improving its realized prices, or expanding an existing facility.
A new entrant might benefit by building capacity that customers are already willing to support.
A technology developer might benefit if its process becomes commercially competitive.
Each is exposed to the same broad change, but each presents a very different investment case.
That distinction is where the research becomes important.
A company with an operating plant and long-term customers has a different risk profile from one still working toward commercial production.
A large contract can provide visibility, but its value depends on the delivery schedule, pricing terms, costs, and conditions attached to it.
And building strategically important infrastructure can still consume substantial capital before it generates an attractive return.
This is why I want to follow the money through the entire chain: from the customer’s commitment to the supplier’s investment, then to deliveries, earnings, and cash flow.
That is how we can assess whether the nuclear fuel sovereignty race is creating an attractive opportunity for shareholders.
In the rest of this edition, I will examine:
The industry’s constraints: where conversion and enrichment capacity is concentrated, what buyers can access, and how the planned expansions could change the market.
Three listed expressions of the thesis: Cameco, Centrus, and Silex—and the different businesses, timelines, and risks behind their exposure.
The economics of the contracts: how prices, customer commitments, and new capacity could translate into earnings and cash flow.
The additional opportunity in advanced fuels: what HALEU could contribute, and how much depends on reactors that still need to be financed and built.
Valuation and scenarios: what would need to happen for each company to justify its price and deliver an attractive return.
A framework for tracking the thesis: the milestones that would strengthen the investment case, and the developments that would make me reconsider it.
The question I want to answer is straightforward:
Which companies can turn this rebuilding of the fuel supply chain into lasting economic value—and how much are we being asked to pay for that opportunity?