Fuel supply exposure
Of 419 operating reactors with a known fuel family, 10 take a fuel that our sources document only Russian fabricators making. Another 67 take VVER fuel, for which one Western fabricator has developed a compatible alternative.
Fuel is not interchangeable across reactor families: a VVER assembly is hexagonal and does not fit a Western PWR. This page counts each country's operating units by the fuel family they take and sets that against the fabricators our sources document as able to make it. It is capability, not contracts. A fleet with several documented suppliers can still buy from one of them.
The fuel families
| Family | Operating units | Documented fabricators | Outside Russia |
|---|---|---|---|
| PWR (square-lattice) fuel | 242 | 6 | 6 |
| VVER (hexagonal) fuel | 67 | 2 | 1 |
| CANDU / PHWR bundles | 46 | 5 | 5 |
| BWR fuel | 45 | 3 | 3 |
| AGR fuel | 8 | 1 | 1 |
| RBMK fuel | 7 | 1 | 0 |
| Fast-reactor fuel | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| Magnox fuel | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| HTGR TRISO fuel | 1 | 2 | 2 |
By country
| Country | Operating units | VVER and RBMK units | Units on Russia-only or undocumented fuel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Russia | 34 | 30 | 9 |
| North Korea | 1 | - | 1 |
| Ukraine | 15 | 15 | - |
| Czech Republic | 6 | 6 | - |
| Slovakia | 5 | 5 | - |
| China | 61 | 4 | - |
| Hungary | 4 | 4 | - |
| India | 22 | 2 | - |
| Finland | 5 | 2 | - |
| Belarus | 2 | 2 | - |
| Bulgaria | 2 | 2 | - |
| Armenia | 1 | 1 | - |
| Iran | 1 | 1 | - |
| United States | 94 | - | - |
| France | 57 | - | - |
| South Korea | 26 | - | - |
| Canada | 17 | - | - |
| Japan | 15 | - | - |
| United Kingdom | 9 | - | - |
| Spain | 7 | - | - |
| Pakistan | 6 | - | - |
| Sweden | 6 | - | - |
| Switzerland | 4 | - | - |
| United Arab Emirates | 4 | - | - |
| Argentina | 3 | - | - |
| Belgium | 2 | - | - |
| Brazil | 2 | - | - |
| Mexico | 2 | - | - |
| Romania | 2 | - | - |
| South Africa | 2 | - | - |
| Netherlands | 1 | - | - |
| Slovenia | 1 | - | - |
"Russia-only or undocumented" counts units whose fuel family has no documented fabricator outside Russia (RBMK, fast-reactor fuel) or none at all. A blank cell means none. Enrichment is a separate constraint; see who enriches uranium.
Sources
- Fabricator capabilities: World Nuclear Association, Nuclear Fuel Fabrication; company sources cited on each supplier page , linked, not reproduced
- Fuel family per unit: Global Nuclear Power Tracker, Global Energy Monitor, August 2026 release , CC BY 4.0
How these sources are used, including the corrections applied on top of them and what is deliberately left blank · download the underlying data