Morocco’s phosphate could soon fuel French reactors as OCP talks uranium with EDF and Orano

What did Le Monde report on Friday?

Morocco’s state phosphate group OCP is in talks with France’s EDF and Orano about supplying uranium concentrate recovered from Moroccan phosphate rock, Le Monde reported on Friday 13 November, in an investigation that puts a long-dormant industrial idea back on the table. The talks began shortly after President Emmanuel Macron’s state visit to Rabat in October 2024, and could lead to a memorandum of understanding signed during the state visit to Paris that King Mohammed VI is expected to make in January 2027.

EDF declined to comment when contacted by Le Monde. Orano said only that it was pursuing a “strategy to diversify its sources of supply”. Neither company confirmed a timetable, a volume or a price; but the direction is clear: France needs steady uranium for its nuclear fleet, and Morocco holds the world’s largest phosphate reserves, with a by-product it has known about since the 1940s.

The plant, if it goes ahead, would stand near the Atlantic port of Jorf Lasfar, where OCP already runs a major industrial complex. Yellowcake, uranium concentrate, could be produced there from 2028, Le Monde reports, recovered from phosphoric acid during fertiliser production, with enough acid by 2030 to supply fuel for about 15 nuclear power plants.

What do the numbers say about Morocco’s uranium?

The resource is large by any measure. Le Monde cites the International Atomic Energy Agency’s figure of around 6 million metric tons of uranium held as a by-product in Morocco’s phosphate deposits; twice the known global resources, in the agency’s words at the time. A scientific review reported by Hespress in July 2025 puts the figure at about 6.9 million tonnes in 50 billion tonnes of phosphate reserves, at 100 to 200 parts per million.

The technology is proven, if long unprofitable. Uranium occurs naturally in phosphate rock and is recovered when the rock is processed into phosphoric acid. OCP has researched extraction since the 1980s through its subsidiary Uranext. In January 2026, Orano’s chairman Claude Imauven told the French Senate his group was researching uranium recovery from phosphate with Morocco, according to Bladi, and a person inside OCP, quoted by Le Monde, called a recent small-scale trial run “successful” and extraction now “profitable”.

The commercial context is moving in Morocco’s favour. OCP controls more than two-thirds of the world’s phosphate reserves, according to The Profiler, and is opening parts of its business to foreign investors to finance a fertiliser hub and a $13 billion investment plan. India is the largest single buyer of Moroccan phosphate, and Shanghai Metals Market notes a $205 million OCP contract with China’s ZPMC for bulk handling equipment at Safi.

What has not been settled yet?

Almost everything commercial. No memorandum has been signed, no volume, price or delivery schedule disclosed, and no final investment decision on the Jorf Lasfar plant announced. Le Monde’s account rests on its own reporting and on company statements that stop well short of confirmation, while EDF’s refusal to comment leaves the largest French buyer outside the public record.

The timetable is tentative by the paper’s own account. The January 2027 state visit is described as hoped for by the Élysée, not confirmed, and the memorandum as a possibility for that visit, not a scheduled signing. Licensing, environmental approvals, financing and ownership of the plant have not been described anywhere in the public record.

History counsels caution. A similar partnership was explored during President Nicolas Sarkozy’s state visit in 2007, when Areva, now Orano, and OCP agreed to cooperate in uranium. It was abandoned. In 1978, King Hassan II told US President Jimmy Carter a uranium extraction project with Westinghouse was close to completion. It never materialised. In Belgium, the Prayon group, in which OCP is a shareholder, recovered nearly 700 metric tons of yellowcake over two decades before stopping for lack of profitability.

Why does a phosphate by-product matter to France’s reactors?

Because France’s uranium map has narrowed sharply. French purchases from Niger ceased after the 2023 military coup and the loss of Orano’s local operations, Le Monde reports, leaving Namibia as France’s only partner on the African continent for uranium supply. A Moroccan source would anchor French supply in a country with which Paris is rebuilding a strategic relationship, months after France backed Morocco’s sovereignty over its Sahara and as the two capitals prepare a friendship treaty.

For Morocco, the stakes are industrial as much as diplomatic. Turning a waste stream into nuclear fuel would add a high-value product to the phosphate chain that dominates the country’s exports, and put Moroccan industry inside the fuel cycle of one of the world’s largest nuclear powers. The timing aligns with a wider moment: the African Development Bank signed a €434.4 million financing deal with Rabat on Friday, and parliament is debating the first post-MINURSO budget. Readers can follow the financing deal here and the budget debate here.

For the uranium market, a new supplier of this scale would matter. If OCP reaches its 2030 acid-production aim, the equivalent of about 15 reactors’ fuel would enter a market where supply security has become a strategic question for every nuclear operator. That is still a conditional; a plant to be built, a memorandum to be signed.

What does the 5D lens show behind the talks?

Through the geopolitical lens, the talks are the industrial echo of a diplomatic realignment. France’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara, the planned friendship treaty and the coming state visit form one sequence; a uranium partnership would give that sequence a material backbone. Through the economic lens, the logic is that of the by-product: uranium arriving free with fertiliser production changes the cost curve of both industries, and OCP’s claim that extraction is now profitable is the hinge of the project.

Through the industrial lens, Jorf Lasfar is the right place at the right scale, a port, a complex, a workforce and a phosphate stream already in place. Through the historical lens, the story is a fourth attempt: the 1940s exploration, the 1978 Westinghouse project, the 2007 Areva agreement, each failed on price or politics. What is different now is that both have moved at once: the price of nuclear fuel has risen, and the politics of the France-Morocco relationship have turned. Through the technology lens, the question is solvent extraction at scale; proven chemistry, since eight plants did it in the United States from the 1970s, but an engineering programme at the volumes OCP describes, not a press release.

What changes if the yellowcake starts flowing?

First, Niger’s leverage falls further. A French nuclear fleet supplied from Morocco has less reason to return to Niamey on any terms, and the Sahel’s bargaining position with Paris weakens accordingly. Namibia, France’s remaining African supplier, gains a competitor, and a price-setter, on its own continent.

Second, the uranium market acquires a supplier whose output is tied to the fertiliser cycle rather than the mining cycle. When phosphate demand rises, uranium supply rises with it; when it falls, supply tightens for reasons unrelated to nuclear power. Traders will have to learn a new correlation, and phosphoric acid will carry a nuclear premium it never had.

Third, Morocco’s own energy debate changes shape. A country that can produce nuclear fuel will face, sooner or later, the question of whether to use it at home; for power, and for the nuclear desalination its water planners have studied for years. The environmental questions will follow the plant to Jorf Lasfar: residues, water use and the scrutiny of a coastal community. None of that is in the public record yet.

What should readers watch before January?

The first signal is the date. The Élysée has not confirmed the state visit, and a memorandum needs a visit to be signed at. Watch for the announcement from Paris and Rabat, and for whether the friendship treaty and the uranium memorandum travel together or apart; the pairing would show how strategic Paris considers the deal. The preparations, including the treaty talks in Rabat, are covered here.

The second signal is the companies. OCP and Orano have said nothing beyond what Le Monde obtained; a joint statement, a disclosed volume or a named plant operator would move the story from reported talks to a real project.

The third signal is the money. The 2027 budget debate in Rabat will show how the government values its industrial bets, and the AfDB financing signed on Friday shows how development lenders price Moroccan governance. If the uranium plant appears in budget documents or lender statements, the project has crossed from diplomacy into the economy. The budget debate is covered here, and the AfDB deal here.