Kazakhstan’s “de facto” uranium nationalisation looks like “spectacular own goal”, says investor

Canadian uranium exploration company Laramide Resources has pulled out of a project in Kazakhstan, accusing the country of very likely having scored a “spectacular own goal” with industry changes that amount to “de facto nationalisation”.

The company said on January 20 it believes “an economic case for foreign direct investment in uranium exploration no longer exists in Kazakhstan”, the world’s number one producer of uranium.

Marc Henderson, CEO at Laramide (TSX: LAM) (ASX: LAM) (OTCQX: LMRXF), commented: "Motivated by an effort to address, and ideally reverse, the obvious and severe decline in the resource base of Kazatomprom, their national uranium company, it appears Kazakhstan may have scored a spectacular own goal with their recent de facto nationalisation of future uranium exploration in country. Political risk, country risk, and in the worst case nationalisation risk are all known unknowns in the resource business but generally don't impact new entrant players (such as Laramide) until obvious value gets created.

"However, in what may be a world's first, Kazakhstan appears to have moved pre-emptively to ensure national ownership and control of any new uranium discoveries before they are actually even made. If Kazatomprom had a unique and singular track record of exploration success, perhaps this new strategy might make sense but their own history suggests otherwise and was confirmed by their November 2025 investor presentation… which shows their resource base beginning a period of rapid decline in only a few years' time - with complete exhaustion by 2057.”

Laramide, which also works in uranium mine development, said it had elected to terminate its option agreement for the Chu-Sarysu Basin uranium project in Kazakhstan with immediate effect.

Signed in September 2024 with Aral Resources, the agreement provided Laramide with optionality on 22 subsoil use licences “in one of the globe's foremost greenfield exploration opportunities for uranium discovery”, the company said.

The Chu-Sarysu Basin also has widely acknowledged potential for the discovery of sediment hosted copper deposits, as well as other critical minerals, it added.

On December 26, President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed into law legislative changes to the Central Asian country’s Subsoil Use Code that were approved by the Senate in November.

Among changes are a materially increased level of minimum ownership of any newly discovered uranium resources by Kazatomprom (KAP.L).

Henderson added: "If Kazatomprom were a bit player in the U [uranium] business and not the largest current uranium producer globally – not to mention one of the most systemically important companies in the nuclear power business generally – their November 2025 exercise in radical transparency might be seen as an insignificant misstep in corporate communications and not what it should be viewed as, which is a gigantic wake-up call for the nuclear utility industry.”

He also stated: "Kazatomprom faces a huge resource renewal challenge but so does the entire industry, which is really the read through from this unfortunate geopolitical development.

“Greenfield exploration in the uranium sector appears to be woefully under invested in our view, and is also focused in far too few places. As a result, U prices may need to go higher -perhaps much higher in our view – to incentivize and catalyze the reserve replacement activity that is clearly required to resolve the large and growing supply deficit.

"We plan to do our part to meet this supply side challenge."

Amid intensifying demand for uranium in relation to the expansion of the nuclear power industry globally – Kazakhstan itself last year committed to building its first nuclear power plants – the Kazakh presidency bills the changed conditions for foreign investors in uranium as safeguarding the country’s strategic interests.

In December, Kazatomprom CEO Meirzhan Yussupov, acknowledged that some foreign partners have voiced concerns about the changes, but said that Kazakhstan had fully met its obligations and expected international operators to accept the upcoming changes.

Any contract extensions would require revisiting commercial terms, including new financial commitments, he said.

Lawmakers said they wanted to give Kazatomprom priority rights not only for production — which it already holds — but also for geological exploration at uranium sites.