“With the commissioning of the South Tortkuduk area, we have significantly increased production volumes in Kazakhstan. In 2024, our production volume there was just under 2.4 thousand tons, and in 2025 just over 3.7 thousand tons,” Orano head Nicolas Mahe said, reports inbusiness.kz.
For comparison, according to Kazatomprom’s annual reports, the company produced 2,564 tons in 2022, 2,103 tons in 2023 and 2,388 tons in 2024. According to the 2025 reporting, in early July last year, Katko launched a new uranium processing plant at the South Tortkuduk project. Mining at this site will gradually replace the areas mined to date, allowing the JV to increase nominal production by 4,000 tons per year.
For 2025, the Kazakh JV generated €628 million in revenue and €324 million in net income, much higher than those figures for 2024 – €479 million and €273 million respectively. At the same time, most of Katko’s net income last year came from Kazatomprom’s share – €159 million.
In other words, the Katko joint venture generated €129 million of net income for the French company Orano in 2025, which is quite an important circumstance against the background of its losses of €25 million.
The management of the French nuclear company said that it plans to expand the geography of its geological exploration in Canada, Botswana, Australia and Mongolia. It should be recalled that over the past few years Orano has lost its presence in Niger, which provided a significant part of its total uranium production.
