France’s Framatome has signed a commercial contract to deliver the world’s first nuclear fuel reload with a uranium-235 enrichment level above the traditional 5% industry standard to an operating commercial nuclear reactor in the US. Deliveries are scheduled to begin in spring 2028. The fuel will be manufactured at Framatome’s specialised production facility in Richland, Washington. The reloads will use Framatome’s proprietary Advanced Fuel Management (AFM) technology. The contract secures long-term deployment at the utility site, featuring options for additional future batches.
“This contract reflects the strength of our long standing relationship with our customer and our shared commitment to advancing nuclear fuel technology”, said Lionel Gaiffe, Framatome’s Senior Executive Vice President, Fuel Business Unit. “Collaborating on this milestone project underscores the trust our customers place in Framatome’s expertise and the innovative capabilities of our Advanced Fuel Management technology.”
The agreement builds on ongoing deliveries of standard GAIA fuel, Framatome’s most advanced pressurised water reactor (PWR) fuel design, which serves as the foundation for these AFM enabled reloads. With AFM, the US customer will extend its fuel cycle length from 18 to 24 months, reducing outage frequency and enhancing operational efficiency and power generation.
Standard light water reactors have historically been limited to low-enriched uranium (LEU) up to about 4.8% or 5% U-235. By using fuel enriched beyond the 5% threshold, known as LEU+ (fuel enriched between 5% and 10%), the operator will realise significant performance efficiencies. Longer fuel cycles reduce the frequency of mandatory refuelling shutdowns, maximising power generation and minimising operational downtime. The higher enrichment unlocks elevated fuel burnup rates, meaning the reactor can extract more energy from the same volume of nuclear material.
This follows years of extensive infrastructure and regulatory work by Framatome. The company spent four years upgrading and modifying its Richland plant to handle the higher enrichment levels safely. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in June granted site-wide authorisation to fabricate fuel enriched past the traditional 5% limit. Specifically, a licence amendment finalised in March 2026 raised Richland’s ceiling from 5.0% to 6.5% U-235 enrichment to accommodate commercial light-water reactor reloads.
While Framatome has kept the exact identity of the customer strictly confidential, industry data and recent regulatory history point heavily to Southern Nuclear Operating Company and its Alvin W Vogtle Electric Generating Plant (Plant Vogtle) in Georgia. In the official announcement, Framatome stated that the new LEU+ contract “builds on ongoing deliveries of standard Gaia fuel”, which serves as the foundation for the new Advanced Fuel Management (AFM) reloads.
Unit 2 of Plant Vogtle Unit 2 is the primary US commercial reactor that has served as the testing ground for Framatome’s GAIA fuel assemblies and completed a full three-cycle, 4.5-year lifecycle test of the fuel. Because the deal relies entirely on the Gaia fuel design architecture, the target facility must be a pressurised water reactor (PWR), as Gaia is specifically engineered for PWR systems. Vogtle 1&2 are Westinghouse-designed PWRs, making them perfect technical matches.
To transition from an experimental trial to a commercial contract, a utility must already have extensive experience and regulatory authorisation to handle higher enrichments. Southern Nuclear has long been the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) primary utility partner for testing advanced fuels. In April 2025, Southern Nuclear loaded first lead test assemblies with uranium-235 enriched up to 6% into Vogtle 2.
Framatome’s contract states that full commercial deliveries will begin in spring 2028. This perfectly aligns with the standard timeline required to wrap up ongoing 6% enrichment test cycles (which began in 2025), evaluate the post-irradiation data, and transition the reactor into full-batch commercial reloads. While other major PWR operators are also pushing for extended 24-month fuel cycles, Southern Nuclear’s Vogtle 2 remains the most logical “unnamed customer” given its unparalleled history with Framatome’s Gaia fuel and enrichment operations above 5%.
Framatome’s contract is part of a much larger, federally backed campaign to completely reshape the US nuclear fuel supply chain. Historically, nuclear fuel has been split into two strict categories – LEU enriched up to 5% U-235, which powers the existing fleet of standard light water reactors, and high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) enriched between 5% and 20% U-235, which is required by next-generation advanced small modular reactors (SMRs) and microreactors.
Framatome’s contract acts as the primary stepping stone bridging these two categories through LEU+. Framatome’s contract marks the first commercial deployment of LEU+. Moving the existing fleet of traditional commercial reactors past the historical 5% limit forces the industry to solve immediate infrastructure bottlenecks. It establishes the commercial precedent, transportation casks, and manufacturing protocols needed for handling material above 5%. This paves the technical and regulatory pathway toward the higher 15% to 20% enrichments that next-generation advanced reactors will require.
Until recently, US facility licences were capped at handling 5% enrichment. Framatome’s progress at its Richland, Washington facility has dismantled regulatory hurdles with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Since the facility cleared the threshold to manufacture fuel enriched past 5% for traditional light-water reactors, NRC has granted a second licence amendment allowing Richland to fabricate fuel operations up to 10% enrichment for advanced reactors. By amending these licences, Framatome has built the blueprint for how other domestic facilities can legally scale up to handle HALEU capacities.
DOE is executing a massive strategy to eliminate reliance on foreign nuclear processing, particularly Russian uranium imports. Its HALEU Availability Program recently selected Framatome as one of six major companies awarded a 10-year contract to provide HALEU deconversion services. Before uranium gas can be turned into usable reactor fuel pellets, it must be “deconverted” into dry oxide or metal forms. Framatome will leverage its patented dry conversion process at Richland to help build out this missing link in the domestic fuel infrastructure.
