From left to right: UUSA’s Gerard Poortman, Wyatt Padgett, Lisa Hardison, and Paul Lorskulsint (seated), with the NRC’s James Downs (seated), Shana Helton, Kimyata Morgan-Butler, John Lubinski, and Johnathan Rowley at NRC headquarters (Photo credit: Urenco USA)

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has authorised Urenco USA (UUSA) to increase uranium enrichment levels up to 10% U-235.

“This positive progress is important to support the nuclear industry to create fuels that will reduce outage cycles for current reactors, provide fuels for some advanced reactor types, and assist our current and future customers”, said John Kirkpatrick, UUSA Managing Director.

 NRC will now review UUSA’s implementation of requirements in the amendment, which is anticipated in late Spring 2025. UUSA will be authorised to produce enrichment levels up to 10% U-235 in all cascades at the facility.

Kirkpatrick noted, “UUSA currently has a capacity of 4.4m separative work units (SWU), which supplies one-third of the domestic enrichment demand, and we are licensed to produce up to 10m SWU.” UUSA is currently expanding its capacity by 15% to support industry needs and has announced an intention to further expand subject to market demand.”

Urenco’s enrichment facility (Photo credit: Urenco)

UUSA is part of Urenco, with its head office in the UK and enrichment facilities in Germany, the Netherlands, the UK as well as the USA. The facilities use centrifuge technology designed and developed by Urenco

UUSA’s Louisiana Energy Services was recently listed by the US Department of Energy (DOE) as one of six companies selected to compete for contracts to supply the department with low enriched uranium (less than 5% U-235). In October, it was one of four companies selected by the DOE to provide enrichment services to help establish a US supply of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) enriched to between 5% and 20% U-235, which will be required to fuel many of the advanced reactors and small modular reactors under development.