The US Department of Energy (DOE) has selected Louisiana Energy Services (Urenco), Orano Federal Services, General Matter and American Centrifuge Operating (Centrus) to provide enrichment services to help establish a US supply of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU).
The contracts, funded by the President’s Inflation Reduction Act, will last for up to 10 years and each awardee receives a minimum contract of $2m, with up to $2.7bn available for these services, subject to the availability of appropriations.
HALEU is uranium enriched up to 20% required to fuel advanced reactor designs. The HALEU that DOE acquires through these contracts will be used to support reactors such as those under development through DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) – TerraPower’s Natrium reactor and X-energy’s Xe-100.
Urenco USA (UUSA) has the only commercial enrichment facility in North America at Eunice in New Mexico operated by Louisiana Energy Services. The facility is already being expanded to meet further demand. The company is also in the licensing process to increase enrichment levels up to 10% to produce so-called low enriched uranium+ – or LEU+ – to support the existing and next generation reactors, which the company says is an important stepping stone towards the production of HALEU.
John Kirkpatrick, Managing Director of Urenco USA, said: “Urenco USA’s US workforce has the knowledge and experience to play a leading role in the production of HALEU and other advanced fuels, operating for more than a decade securely under intergovernmental treaties to ensure the peaceful use and safeguarding of nuclear technology.”
Orano and American Centrifuge Operating parent company Centrus were among the six companies recently awarded DOE contracts worth at least $2m each to provide HALEU deconversion services. Orano said its “robust and integrated solution for HALEU”, including enrichment and deconversion, would be located at its preferred site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where it plans to build a new centrifuge uranium enrichment facility.
“As a successful, global leader for uranium chemistry, enrichment, and delivery, we have been participating from the very beginning in the DOE’s process for developing US HALEU capacity that is reliable, diversified, and commercially viable,” Orano USA CEO Jean-Luc Palayer said. “We are honoured to receive this contract, in addition to the HALEU deconversion contract that we received earlier this month, and we are ready to deliver.”
Orano said its significant investment in the design and construction of an American HALEU enrichment facility would use existing modern ultracentrifugation technology to promptly and securely deliver HALEU capacity without the need for additional extensive research and development. “After deciding to raise the production capacity of the Georges Besse II uranium enrichment facility in France by more than 30%, Orano is now proud to be selected by DOE for the development of a robust and integrated solution for HALEU, including enrichment and deconversion.”
Centrus is already producing HALEU for DOE under a two-phase cost-share contract signed in 2022. Its first delivery of 20 kg of HALEU produced at the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio, was delivered to the DOE in November 2023. Centrus is now in the second phase of the contract to produce a full year of HALEU production plant, which has a capacity of 900kg a year.
The latest award could facilitate the potential expansion of Centrus’s HALEU production capacity, said Centrus President and CEO Amir Vexler. He added: “It represents a critical piece of the public-private partnership we are working to build so that we can restore a robust, American-owned uranium enrichment capability to power the future of nuclear energy.”
American Centrifuge Operating will manufacture the centrifuges and supporting equipment exclusively in the USA, relying upon domestic engineering and an existing domestic supply chain that is expected to grow, the company said.
General Matter Inc, formed in January 2024 was federally registered in February in San Francisco as “Primary NAICS Category. 325180 – Other Basic Inorganic Chemical Manufacturing; Self-Certifications. For Profit Organization”. Its website provides no information except an email address. The spokesperson declined to answer specific questions, including on the enrichment technology the company plans to use, saying “We’re not sharing any additional information on the company at this time.” Scott Nolan, a former SpaceX employee and partner at venture capital firm Founders Fund, is named as CEO. In response to an inquiry from Nuclear News, a company spokesperson said DOE “has been great to work with and we appreciate their support. We look forward to partnering with the entire DOE team to help meet the nation’s energy production and climate goals.”
