US uranium production in 2025 hit its highest level since 2017, more than tripling 2024, EIA says

Uranium concentrate output from U.S. facilities came to about 2.1 million pounds of triuranium octoxide in 2025, against 657,000 pounds in 2024, according to the Energy Information Administration’s revised annual production report. That is roughly 3.2 times the earlier year’s volume and, by the agency’s own wording, the most since 2017.

The finding is a dated release, not a development from the past few days. EIA put it in a Today in Energy item on August 28, 2026, and the numbers describe the calendar year 2025.

The revised 2025 production figure

EIA’s item, titled “U.S. uranium production more than tripled in 2025 and was the highest since 2017,” carries the central claim in the agency’s own words: U.S. output was more than triple the volume produced in 2024. The underlying 2025 Domestic Uranium Production Report gives the pounds: about 2.1 million pounds of U3O8 concentrate last year, up from 657,000 in 2024. U3O8 is the base component of nuclear reactor fuel and the first step in the fuel production process, before conversion into uranium hexafluoride.

The tripling is a production volume. It is not a price, a reserve estimate or a sign of how much of the country’s fuel is mined at home. Plants held on standby, described below, are outside that 2.1 million pounds; the figure counts what operating facilities produced and nothing else. EIA’s item and the full report are both dated August 2026, so every figure here is a year-end 2025 number as published then, not a running count for the current year. Each of the operating in-situ recovery sites recovers uranium by pumping solution through a deposit and pulling the dissolved metal back to the surface, which is a different cost structure from a conventional mine and mill.

June’s first release said something smaller

The figure that now stands is not the one EIA first published. In its original annual report, released June 23, 2026, the agency put 2025 output at 1,388,000 pounds against 677,000 pounds in 2024, which World Nuclear News reported as more than doubling the previous year. That version also marked the first time since 2017 that domestic mines had topped one million pounds in a year.

EIA’s revision notice records an update to the report dated August 20, 2026, restating production as about 2.1 million pounds in 2025 and 657,000 pounds in 2024. A second entry, dated August 27, revised the description of drilling activity. The Today in Energy item followed on August 28 and uses the revised numbers throughout. Any account that still says production “more than doubled” is quoting the June release; the more-than-tripling holds only on the August figures.

Drilling, spending and a small share of supply

The same report shows industry activity rising with output. Exploration drilling reached 1,824 holes and about 1,016,000 feet, and development drilling reached 3,708 holes and about 1,302,000 feet, the most holes since 2012 and the most footage since 2013 in EIA’s revision wording. The industry employed 711 full-time person-years, up 41 percent from 2024, and spent $234.7 million, the highest level since 2014. Operating in-situ recovery plants held a combined capacity of 13.3 million pounds a year, five more plants were on standby with 8.8 million pounds of capacity, and seven new plants in development could add 10.5 million pounds.

Capacity that large against an output of 2.1 million pounds is the gap the report quietly exposes: the facilities running in 2025 produced a small fraction of what they could in principle.

The American Nuclear Society’s summary of the EIA data, published September 1, 2026, adds the supply picture. Domestic material made up only 7 percent of uranium deliveries to U.S. nuclear operators in 2025, with Canada supplying 32 percent, Kazakhstan 28 percent and Australia 15 percent. Reactor operators bought 46.9 million pounds of U3O8 equivalent, down from 55.9 million the year before, at a weighted-average price of $58.46 per pound, up 11 percent from $52.71.

Against 46.9 million pounds of purchases, 2.1 million pounds of domestic production is under 5 percent, which is a different way of arriving at the same point: a tripling from a very low base is still a small number against what U.S. reactors buy.

The annual report cannot say whether 2025 marks the start of a sustained climb or a one-year recovery from near-zero. It covers a single calendar year, and the next data point, EIA’s figure for 2026, will arrive with the next annual edition. The agency’s own revision from 1.38 million to 2.1 million pounds shows how much a single reporting correction can move the picture, and how provisional the first read of a small, concentrated industry can be.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.