The global uranium market entered a state of oversupply beginning in 2012, following a drop in demand that resulted from the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, which crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and led to the suspension of operations at all of Japan's 54 nuclear reactors. In 2017, recognizing the need for the world's largest primary uranium producer to take a leadership role in balancing global supply, Kazatomprom's management began to shift the Company's strategy away from a focus on production volume, centering a new strategy on value and aligning production output with market demand.