Urenco USA has completed installation and startup of its fourth new cascade of gas centrifuges at its uranium enrichment facility in New Mexico, marking the half-way point of its current US capacity expansion programme. As the only US commercial-scale producer of enriched uranium, Urenco USA operates the National Enrichment Facility, that began operations in 2010 and has the capacity to meet approximately one-third of the enrichment needs of US commercial NPPs.
The company’s newest cascade began producing low enriched uranium (LEU) on 30 March. All four cascades installed during the current expansion began operating ahead of schedule and are on budget. The company is installing 700,000 separative work units (SWU) of new capacity at the site between 2025-2027. Urenco USA intends to further expand the New Mexico plant’s capacity by up to 2.1m SWU in the future, based on the needs of its customers and supported by their long-term contracts.
Urenco USA also intends to refurbish existing capacity at the site starting in 2027 as part of ongoing capital investments in the plant to maintain a long-term, reliable supply of enrichment services. Since 2006, the company has invested more than $5bn of private capital in the facility to provide a secure domestic supply of enriched uranium.
“As the United States prepares to end the imports of nuclear fuel from Russia, the installation of new uranium enrichment capacity will play a critical role in ensuring US utilities have the supply they need to support the future operations of their nuclear plants,” said John Kirkpatrick, Managing Director of Urenco USA. “With our current capacity expansion programme in the US, the capacity refurbishment programmes at Urenco’s other sites, and other allied sources of supply, we are confident that the country can make this important transition away from Russian uranium imports when the ban on Russian material goes fully into effect at the end of 2027.”
