Moscow-led trade bloc and the Uranium market

January 2, 2015 by Matt McCracken

Armenia joined the Russian-led trade bloc that previously included Belarus and Kazakhstan.  While these countries may seem insignficant in most sectors of the worldwide economy, Kazakhstan is actually very signfigant in one small but important market - uranium production.  Nearly 40% of the world's urnamium production now falls under this trade bloc.  Kazakhstan is the world's largest producer at 33% of world output ahead of the likes of Australia and Canada (source: Wikipedia.org).  This gives Russia increased leverage over power production in Western Europe.  If Russia wanted to interupt power production in the EU, it would be easy to do so with its control of its own natural gas market and now its close ties with Kazakhstan and its uranium production.