High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) Nuclear Fuel Market (2026-2036)

The growth of this market is mainly driven by the pipeline of advanced reactors and supportive government policy, large government funding for domestic HALEU production, and technology companies' demand for advanced nuclear power for data centers. However, the lack of non-Russian production capacity at scale, the loss of Russian supply through sanctions and counter-sanctions, uncertain offtake while reactors remain unlicensed, and the security and transport requirements for Category II nuclear material restrain the growth of this market.

Furthermore, allied enrichment capacity, TRISO and other advanced fuel fabrication, and defense and space reactor programs are expected to offer growth opportunities for the stakeholders in this market. However, gaps in deconversion and fabrication capacity, meeting government delivery schedules, financing capital-intensive facilities amid uncertain prices, and qualifying new fuel forms remain major challenges impacting the growth of this market. Additionally, government-led allocation and offtake, new enrichment technologies and entrants, and public-private co-investment are prominent trends in this market.

The HALEU Nuclear Fuel Market comprises the production and supply of high-assay low-enriched uranium, enriched to between 5% and 20% uranium-235, and the advanced nuclear fuels made from it. The market covers enrichment of uranium hexafluoride to HALEU levels, typically up to 19.75%, whether through new centrifuge or laser enrichment capacity or by downblending highly enriched uranium; deconversion of enriched uranium hexafluoride into metal or oxide; and fabrication of fuel forms including TRISO coated-particle fuel, metallic fuel, higher-enrichment oxide fuel, and molten salt fuel. HALEU is required by most advanced reactor designs, including high-temperature gas reactors, sodium-cooled fast reactors, molten salt reactors, and microreactors, as well as research, test, space, and defense reactors. Conventional low-enriched uranium below 5% and weapons-grade uranium are excluded. The ecosystem spans uranium enrichers, deconversion and fuel fabrication companies, advanced reactor developers, national laboratories, government agencies, and utilities and industrial end users.

Supply is the market's defining constraint. The U.K.'s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero stated in May 2024 that only Russia and China had the infrastructure to produce HALEU at scale, and Russia was the only commercial producer serving Western customers. In the U.S., Centrus Energy's Piketon, Ohio, facility, licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2021, is the only licensed HALEU production facility and had delivered 900 kilograms of HALEU to the DOE by June 2025. Lack of fuel has already delayed projects: TerraPower announced in December 2022 that it expected a delay of at least two years for its 345-megawatt Natrium demonstration reactor in Wyoming because domestic and allied HALEU would not be available in time.

Governments are responding with funding and policy. The Energy Act of 2020 created the DOE's HALEU Availability Program, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 provided USD 700 million to support HALEU production, and 2024 emergency supplemental appropriations provided USD 2.7 billion for new uranium enrichment. The FY2024 National Defense Authorization Act directed the DOE to make 21 metric tons of HALEU available on a set schedule: 3 tonnes by 30 September 2024, 8 tonnes by 31 December 2025, and 10 tonnes by 30 June 2026. In April 2025, the DOE made first-round conditional HALEU allocations to TRISO-X, TerraPower, Kairos Power, Radiant Industries, and Westinghouse, having received requests from 15 companies, and in August 2025 added Antares Nuclear, Standard Nuclear, and Abilene Christian University with Natura Resources. In January 2026, the DOE awarded USD 900 million task orders each to Centrus and General Matter for HALEU enrichment.

Allied capacity is being built outside the U.S. The U.K. government awarded GBP 196 million to Urenco in May 2024, part of a GBP 300 million HALEU program, to build an enrichment facility at Capenhurst capable of producing up to 10 tonnes of HALEU a year by 2031, which it said would end Russia's position as the only commercial HALEU producer in Europe. Meanwhile, the U.S. Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act, signed on 13 May 2024, bans imports of Russian enriched uranium, with waivers ending on 1 January 2028, and Russia imposed its own restrictions on enriched uranium exports to the U.S. in November 2024.