In 2025, global investment in critical minerals declined 9%, ending years of consecutive growth. Uranium, however, moved in the opposite direction. According to the Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026 published by the International Energy Agency, uranium exploration spending posted modest growth while lithium and nickel saw their exploration budgets slashed by roughly 45%. Against a backdrop of broad contraction, that is a result that speaks volumes about where the energy market is heading.
The IEA report captures a sector under pressure on multiple fronts. Geopolitical tensions and price volatility have made investors cautious, even in the face of structurally solid demand for clean energy technologies. Battery metals took the sharpest hit, with capital expenditure falling more than 20% — the steepest drop in over a decade — and lithium companies cutting investment by around 40%. Copper, by contrast, increased investment by 8%. Along with copper, uranium remained one of the few segments with a stable or positive trajectory. Asia-Pacific was the only region to buck the overall exploration trend, posting a 20% increase, while most other parts of the world trimmed budgets. Governments in advanced economies raised public support to around $65 billion in 2025 — four times the 2023 level — yet a significant gap remains between announced commitments and actual disbursements.
This context explains why uranium behaves differently from other minerals. Demand for nuclear fuel is structurally tied to long-term contracts with electric utilities, making it far less exposed to the short-term swings that batter battery metals markets. At the same time, new drivers are broadening the outlook for future demand. Growing interest in small modular reactors (SMRs) and the energy needs of AI data centers are pushing nuclear capacity expansion worldwide. According to the USGS, US commercial reactors alone are estimated to require approximately 433 million pounds of U3O8 equivalent over the 2025–2035 decade.
Canada sits at the heart of this dynamic. The world’s second-largest uranium producer — accounting for 24% of global output in 2024 — the country extracted 14,300 tonnes of uranium from Saskatchewan that year, worth roughly CAD 3 billion, and exported 90% of it. The Athabasca Basin in northern Saskatchewan hosts the planet’s most significant high-grade uranium deposits, with ore concentrations up to one hundred times the global average. A recent scientific study catalogued more than 2,600 uranium occurrences and deposits across Canadian territory, classifying them into six main types. The country’s proven reserves exceed 588,000 tonnes of elemental uranium — enough to sustain production for at least fifty years at current rates. Canada’s first national nuclear strategy, unveiled in 2026, set a target to double uranium exports within the decade to 2035, with new mines required to come online by that date and a review of mineral investment policies planned for 2027.
Uranium exploration’s resilience in 2025 is no coincidence. It reflects concrete expectations of rising demand in the years ahead, driven by a growing number of reactors under construction worldwide and by energy policies that are reassessing nuclear power’s role in decarbonisation. Canada has the resources, the geopolitical positioning, and now an explicit strategy to become the preferred uranium supplier for Western markets. If intentions translate into operational mining capacity by 2035, the country will cement a leadership role that production data already sketch out with considerable clarity.
