Mukhtar Dzhakishev, president of Kazatomprom, Kazakhstan’s state nuclear power company, describes himself as a physicist and a businessman. He is also something of a clairvoyant.

Six years ago Mr Dzhakishev told an international mining conference in Toronto that a shortage of uranium, a radioactive metal that fuels atomic power plants, was about to hit world markets. Kazakhstan, on track to overtake Canada and Australia as the world’s biggest uranium producer, could, he said, fill the gap in supply.