India-Canada Uranium Talks and 74 Million Tonnes of New LNG Signal a Supply Map in Flux

India-Canada Uranium Talks and 74 Million Tonnes of New LNG Signal a Supply Map in Flux Nuclear fuel diplomacy and a wave of Americas LNG approvals are redrawing energy trade routes as Russian enrichment dominance persists. India and Canada will hold trade talks from 25 to 27 May, with critical minerals and uranium cooperation at the top of the agenda. The negotiations were exchanged in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney at Hyderabad House in New Delhi. For energy markets, the uranium component is the significant piece. India is trying to diversify nuclear fuel supply at a moment when Russia's grip on enrichment has left the West scrambling for alternatives.¹² Russia's dominance over the nuclear fuel cycle is the chokepoint that nobody has solved. The European Commission pledged to introduce taxes or levies on Russian enriched uranium with the aim of gradually phasing it out, alongside measures to halt Russian gas imports by 2027. It soon delayed the uranium plans. The reason is practical: Western enrichment capacity cannot replace Russian supply quickly enough. The U-turn exposed a gap between political ambition and industrial reality that India's approach to Canada is designed to avoid.⁶ The nuclear revival accelerating behind these diplomatic moves is substantial. The US government wants to quadruple nuclear capacity from roughly 100 gigawatts to 400 gigawatts by 2050, a target that Bank of America values as a $10 trillion market opportunity. Goldman Sachs has added small modular reactors to its forecasting models. The IEA projects global nuclear capacity increasing more than 50% from 2025 to 2050.^4,3⁷ Uranium supply is concentrating at precisely the wrong moment. Cameco produced about 17% of the world's uranium in 2024, second only to Kazakhstan's Kazatomprom at 21%. Orano follows at 11%. Three companies control half the global supply. The World Nuclear Association projects demand climbing about 28% by 2030 and more than 100% by 2040. Citi analysts expect uranium prices to reach $125 per pound this year as demand outstrips supply.^4,3 Cameco's vertical integration strengthens its position. Its 49% stake in Westinghouse gives it exposure to reactor design at a time when Westinghouse is part of an $80 billion agreement with the US government to build new reactors for AI data centre deployment. Analysts expect Cameco's revenue and adjusted EBITDA to grow at compound annual rates of 8% and 12% respectively from 2025 to 2028.^4,3 Trump's vow that the US will recover uranium from Iran adds a speculative element. Prediction markets assign it low probability — the Iran uranium enrichment agreement shows 8.6% YES pricing, and US obtaining Iranian enriched uranium by end of May sits at 3.6%. These are tail events. But they illustrate how nuclear fuel has become entangled with the same Middle Eastern conflict that is disrupting oil and gas.¹¹ On the gas side, the Americas LNG pipeline is expanding rapidly. North and Central America could approve final investment decisions for 12 more LNG export projects this year, comprising 74 million tonnes per year of capacity, the Energy Industries Council reported. The approvals are being spurred by the loss of Qatari supply.⁹ Latin America's growing gas demand is unlikely to create the competition for LNG cargoes that some European buyers fear. Central and South American demand is rising, but reliance on long-term contracts and growing regional trade mean the region will not be bidding against Europe in spot markets, experts told Montel. That distinction matters for European supply security calculations.² Brazil's trade strategy reflects the broader geopolitical shift. With the WTO enfeebled, Brazil is deepening bilateral ties as what its chief adviser Celso Amorim calls a vaccine against arbitrary moves from any one power. For energy, that means Brazilian LNG and pipeline gas will flow through negotiated channels rather than spot markets, reducing price volatility for contracted buyers but leaving the spot market thinner.⁸ German industry is absorbing the cost of all these supply disruptions. Economy minister Katherina Reiche warned that German industry is bleeding from spiralling energy costs. Eurelectric has called for removing barriers to power purchase agreements as key to reducing risks to the clean energy investments Europe needs. The political pressure to secure affordable, non-Russian, non-Middle-Eastern energy supply is intensifying across every fuel type simultaneously.^1,10 The European refining sector faces its own adjustment. Petroplus closed three of five refineries after banks froze more than $2 billion in credit lines. Europe received 48.4% of all US distillate exports in October, up from 43.5% a year earlier, according to EIA data. Reduced European refining capacity means higher prices as more buyers compete for American fuel supply, analyst Sander Cohen at ESAI noted.⁵ The confirmation signal is the India-Canada talks themselves. If they produce a binding uranium supply framework by the end of May, it validates the thesis that nuclear fuel procurement is being rebuilt through bilateral agreements rather than multilateral institutions. Watch also whether the 74 million tonnes of Americas LNG capacity converts to FIDs by year-end.^12,9