Top producers, successful explorers, and industry stakeholders gathered at the Global Uranium Conference 2025 in Adelaide from 21–22 October. Over 200 delegates were in attendance including representatives from SRK Australia.

Key topics included emerging market trends, technological and regulatory developments, and Australia’s growing role in the global uranium supply chain.

The World Nuclear Association reports that approximately 440 reactors are currently operating worldwide, with a further 170 either under construction or in planning. In 2025, almost 70,000 tonnes of uranium were required to fuel global nuclear energy demand. Major growth in nuclear energy is expected to meet the surging energy demands of an AI-driven, data-rich future.

Momentum is building in the uranium industry, where energy supply constraints, technological trends and policy changes are driving bullish market conditions and opportunities in exploration and project development.

Uranium market

Financial analysts (Bell Potter, Shaw and Partners, Petra Capital) appear unanimously bullish around the market outlook for 2026, with long-term contract pricing forecasts ranging upwards of US$100/lb.

The pricing upswing is driven by deepening structural supply deficits attributed to recent production cuts by Cameco and Kazatomprom, and a general lack of greenfields exploration, combined with increasing global fuel demand from new generational capacity.

Sentiment was upbeat around Australia’s role in the supply chain, buoyed by positive news from the recent US–Australia critical minerals deal and the AUKUS submarine partnership which will further increase uranium demand and supply chain security.

During the conference, the United States – Australia Critical Minerals Framework was agreed upon. The following week, the US government committed to at least US$80 billion in investment to build Westinghouse nuclear reactors and to revive domestic nuclear development. Both policies have clear benefits to the uranium industry and show how swiftly the project landscape can shift.

Regulatory environment

Regulation of uranium exploration and production remains complex within Australia.

South Australia is a premier jurisdiction with an established track record of project development and realisation, reflecting a more favourable regulatory environment. Support for the industry was expressed from both sides of the political spectrum during speeches from local politicians, Tom Koutsantonis MP (Labour) and Dan Tehan MP (Liberal). Locating key AUKUS partnership facilities in South Australia is expected to further strengthen the state’s standing in the industry.

Explorers are active in the Northern Territory, particularly around the Alligator Rivers province for unconformity and structural mineralisation styles (e.g. Alligator Energy, Patronus Resources). Environmental issues at the closed Ranger Mine have diminished community trust that will require demonstration of maturity and consideration to regain.

Western Australia is home to advanced exploration projects such as Mulga Rock (Deep Yellow) and Wiluna (Toro Energy) that are awaiting anticipated changes in state regulation to permit further development towards future production.

Other states remain challenges from a regulatory perspective and represent longer-term prospects.

Technology and innovation trends

Craig Scroggie, CEO and Managing Director of Next DC, an Australian data centre operator, discussed how data centres and different AI services are rapidly increasing energy requirements to the point where local supply infrastructure cannot maintain pace to reliably support the baseload demand.

Nuclear energy, in particular cutting-edge small modular reactors (SMRs), is a key part of the potential solution with proactive support from the technology sector. Amazon recently invested US$500 million in SMR development and Microsoft has signed a 20-year power offtake deal to restart the Three Mile Island facility in Pennsylvania, on the US East Coast.

SMRs, defined as reactors with rated electrical power of 300 MWe or less, have been in development since the late 1990s. As prefabricated units, they offer the advantages of fast deployment and commissioning versus conventional facilities; increased safety, including integrated fail-safe mechanisms; and flexibility in their modular nature.

Currently, 127 SMR designs are in various stages of development, each built on different core technologies and offering distinct benefits and applications for either electrical or thermal energy supply. Electrical SMRs can generate base load power at remote sites, such as mines or towns, while thermal SMRs have applications in desalinisation, district heating and hydrogen production (see image at bottom of this Westinghouse article). 

Governments and the technology sector are investing to advance the market viability of SMRs to reduce carbon emissions and increase energy supplies for a data and AI enabled future. Seven SMR designs are operational or under construction.

Company highlights

Sessions on uranium development, operations and exploration presented the uranium market from the perspectives of production majors, mid-tiers and junior explorers. Canada, the US, Africa, Central Asia and Australia were well-represented, alongside developing jurisdictions such as Scandinavia and Argentina.

International production major Cameco presented its operations in Africa, central Asia and Canada, including the flagship high-grade Cigar Lake and MacArthur River mines, while Orano discussed its technical expertise in uranium in situ recovery extraction around the world.

NexGen Energy’s Rook I project in Canada, with 337.4 Mlb U3O8, is among the world’s largest undeveloped uranium projects. Its size, grade, and planned conventional underground mining method favour a low-tonnage, high-value operation.

Australian miner Heathgate Resources celebrated 25 years of continuous production using its low-impact in situ recovery process at Four Mile, showing impressive wellfield rehabilitation results and inclined drilling techniques designed to minimise environmental impacts. Heathgate is actively exploring using its own drill rig fleet to increase the company’s polymetallic resource base.

Boss Energy continues to ramp-up production at Honeymoon, with new wellfields coming online throughout 2026, upgraded processing capacity and additional exploration to boost confidence in the mineable resource.

Deep Yellow detailed its advanced exploration projects in Namibia and Australia, including the important Mulga Rock project in Western Australia. Polymetallic mineralisation (cobalt, critical minerals and rare earth elements), located immediately below the uranium, has been included in the latest resource estimate, increasing project value. A resin-in-pulp processing pathway is proposed to extract uranium from highly carbonaceous sediments.

Local juniors – including Alligator Energy, Orpheus Uranium, and Cauldron Energy – rounded out the session, highlighting active uranium exploration in Australia.

Exploration insights

The technical sessions focused on smart, effective and modern uranium exploration, showcasing applications of automation and AI technologies in data processing, and the use of high-resolution geophysics to increase project geological knowledge.

Orpheus Uranium discussed automated spatial location mapping of field photographs upon capture; analysis of aerial spectral survey datasets to assist with prospectivity studies; and the rapid digitisation of historical hard copy tabular data for rapid visualisation and modelling.

Both Orpheus Uranium and Alligator Energy have independently developed AI workflows that use computer vision to extract the dominant colour of sampled rock chip intervals from chip tray photographs.

Sedimentary uranium mineralisation is driven by the oxidation and reduction (redox) properties of permeable host reservoir facies. Changing redox conditions produce mineralogy transitions that express as visual colour changes.

Colour is among the most subjective measurements logged by exploration geologists, so AI‑driven approaches, coupled with calibrated photography, offer vast improvements to data quality and consistency. Geological modelling software offers the ability to display colours downhole, so colour can be visualised – and even modelled – in 3D. This affords powerful and tangible insight into redox properties which represent a key control on mineralisation.

Affordable high-resolution geophysical surveys assist with mapping of sedimentary mineralisation host facies and basement structures. Where potentially mineralised sediments can be located and resolved using geophysics, exploration targeting is vastly improved, drill planning is well-informed, and geological models are better constrained.

Multiple geophysical survey techniques were demonstrated at different deposit types:

• Cauldron Energy showcased its effective use of Horizontal to Vertical Spectral Ratio (known as HSVR) passive seismic at the Manyingee prospect of the Yanrey Project to effectively interpret the locations and boundaries of palaeochannels (more information here)
• Alligator Energy demonstrated the role of high-resolution gravity surveys in the mapping of basement topography, incised by uranium mineralised palaeochannels at the Samphire Project.
• Dr Baohong Hou of the South Australian Department for Energy and Mining advocated night-time thermal mapping as a satellite-based remote sensing technique for palaeochannel definition.

In each example, prospect-scale geophysical surveys proved cost-effective and delivered practical benefits for explorers seeking to increase their return on exploration investment.

Conclusion

The Global Uranium Conference 2025 captured the momentum in the uranium industry and the opportunities and challenges ahead.

AI and data-driven technologies are becoming increasingly integrated into everyday life, escalating energy demand.

Nuclear energy – especially through innovations in reactor technology such as SMRs – has a key role in the global energy mix to increase supply and the stability of clean energy. Surging energy demand is compounded by a structural deficit in uranium supply with pricing forecast to increase.

These factors create a fertile and potentially long-lasting environment for exploration and project development at a time when fresh greenfields exploration is urgently needed to replenish resources.

Australia’s leadership, strong project pipeline, exploration expertise, technological innovation and regulatory positioning were clear, but continued success will depend on delivering on environmental and societal expectations and building trust with the community.

If you would like to learn more about uranium project evaluation, contact Oliver Willetts via the SRK website.