Barrels with uranium oxide are stored at the Ulba Metallurgical Plant in the northeastern industrial city of Oskemen (Ust-Kamenogorsk), Kazakhstan May 26, 2017. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov

OSKEMEN, Kazakhstan (Reuters) - Kazakhstan, the world’s biggest uranium producer, will start producing nuclear fuel for Chinese power plants in 2019 through a joint venture set up by the two countries, a senior official at the Ulba Metallurgical Plant told Reuters.

The joint venture, Ulba-FA, is now building on land at the Ulba plant, Kazakhstan’s main uranium processing factory.

The Central Asian nation has no enrichment facilities and mostly exports uranium in the form of triuranium octoxide or pellets, both of which require further processing before being used by power plants.

By contrast, the joint venture between Kazakh state nuclear company Kazatomprom and China’s CGNPC aims to produce ready-to-use fuel assemblies. It will procure enriched uranium either in China or in Russia, the Ulba plant’s head of sales Alexander Khodanov said on Friday.

The first stage of the joint venture will produce about 200 tonnes of nuclear fuel a year using technologies and equipment supplied by France’s Areva.

Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic that borders China, has no nuclear power plants of its own.