India has signed a long-term uranium supply agreement with Uzbekistan, announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Tashkent summit on August 30, 2026. The two nations simultaneously elevated their bilateral relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, setting a trade target of five billion dollars by 2030.
The deal extends a 2019 agreement under which Tashkent had committed to delivering 1,100 metric tonnes of natural uranium concentrate to India by 2026. According to parliamentary data from March 2025, New Delhi had already received 600 metric tonnes under that contract. The new agreement expands and strengthens this supply chain, securing the fuel needed for Indian reactors operating under IAEA safeguards. Modi summed up the objective in a few words: “We will establish a long-term agreement for uranium supply.”
The Uzbekistan deal does not stand alone. Just weeks earlier, in July 2026, Australia and India had finalized a long-awaited administrative arrangement for Australian uranium exports under strict IAEA safeguards. Canberra holds approximately 28 percent of the world’s known uranium reserves. In March 2026, Canadian giant Cameco had signed a CAD 2.6 billion contract with India’s Department of Atomic Energy: nearly 22 million pounds of uranium concentrate to be delivered between 2027 and 2035. A parallel agreement with Kazakhstan’s Kazatomprom, the world’s largest uranium producer, added yet another piece to the puzzle. The strategy is clear: no single supplier, maximum supply chain resilience.
The drive behind this race for supply lies in the numbers. India currently operates 24 nuclear reactors and aims to reach 100 gigawatts of installed capacity by 2047. Achieving that requires growing volumes of fuel and multi-year contracts to ensure continuity. India’s pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWRs) run on imported natural uranium — without stable supplies, expansion stalls. Meanwhile, global market conditions are not making things easier: uranium prices have more than tripled since late 2020, and according to Bloomberg Intelligence, the market could remain tight until at least 2029 as utilities scramble to rebuild inventories.
The agreement with Uzbekistan also carries significant geopolitical weight. Tashkent is the world’s fifth-largest uranium producer, and its Central Asian location makes it a strategic partner for New Delhi, which is determined to diversify its supply away from any single dependency. If all the deals already signed come fully online — Canada, Kazakhstan, Australia, and now Uzbekistan — India will have built a supply network robust enough to sustain its nuclear expansion for at least a decade. With 100 gigawatts as the target and 2047 as the deadline, every year of delay in the fuel chain weighs on the construction schedule for new plants. The agreements signed this year make it clear that New Delhi understands this all too well.
