Producer
Orano SA
French state-majority-owned nuclear fuel cycle company. Revenue ~€4.5B (2024). Operates Georges Besse II enrichment plant at Tricastin (France) — ~7.5 million SWU/yr capacity. Also mines uranium in Niger and Kazakhstan, and provides conversion services. The largest single Western enrichment facility. Signed multiple long-term supply contracts with US utilities post-Russian import ban. Orano is 80% owned by French state via CEA and Caisse des Dépôts.
3
Inputs supplied
2
Goods downstream
1
Facilities
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Stories
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3 inputs Orano SA supplies
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Uranium Mining
25%Uranium Conversion
15%Uranium Enrichment (Georges Besse II)
35%Nuclear Fuel Fabrication
15%Recycling & Waste Management
10%
Intelligence
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Did you know2024
Orano mines uranium in Niger, which experienced a military coup in July 2023 when the presidential guard ousted President Mohamed Bazoum. The Arlit and Akouta uranium mines in northern Niger, operated by Orano subsidiaries, supply approximately 5-6% of global uranium production and represent a significant portion of Orano's uranium feed. After the coup, the new military junta suspended uranium export licenses in August 2024 and announced the revocation of Orano's mining licenses -- creating a direct threat to French and European uranium supply at the same time Russia's war on Ukraine was disrupting the parallel uranium transport route through Russia. The same uranium that powers French nuclear reactors generating 70% of France's electricity was extracted by a French state company in a Sahel country that had just expelled French military forces and was aligning with Russian Wagner Group mercenaries. An African military coup directly threatened European nuclear energy security through a single company's mining licenses.
Reuters ↗Origin2023
Orano SA is the direct descendant of the French nuclear fuel cycle infrastructure built for France's independent nuclear deterrent (Force de frappe) in the 1950s-60s. De Gaulle's insistence on a French nuclear bomb independent of US/NATO required a complete fuel cycle: uranium mines in Africa (Niger, Gabon), conversion plants, and enrichment capability. The Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique (CEA) built this infrastructure, which was commercialized as Cogema and then expanded into Areva in 2001 to serve global civilian nuclear markets. When Areva went bankrupt in 2016 after overruns on nuclear reactor construction projects (Flamanville EPR), the French state restructured it: the reactor business became Framatome (sold majority to EDF), the fuel cycle business became Orano. The uranium mines in Niger and Kazakhstan, the La Hague reprocessing plant, and the Georges Besse II enrichment plant are all built from infrastructure originally designed for French military nuclear independence in the early Cold War.
Orano SA ↗