Urenco USA (UUSA) has launched the fifth cascade of new uranium enrichment capacity at the National Enrichment Facility (NEF) in Eunice, New Mexico, continuing the company’s track record of bringing new cascades online ahead of schedule and on budget.
UUSA is the sole commercial producer of enriched uranium operating in North America. The site provides approximately one-third of the total uranium enrichment needs for US commercial nuclear plants. Domestic capacity limits reliance on foreign sources, specifically mitigating supply chain gaps from banned Russian nuclear fuel. Surging utility demands are heavily driven by massive investments in clean energy for AI data centres.
UUSA aims to install 700,000 separative work units (SWU) of new capacity by early 2027. The first new cascade was launched in May 2025, the second in September 2025, the third in December 2025, the fourth in April 2026 (marking the program’s halfway point), and the fifth on 22 June 22
Three additional cascades are slated to go online before the close of this specific phase in 2027. Over the next 10 years (starting 2027), older existing cascades will undergo complete modernisation. Construction has begun on a storage building to securely house decommissioned equipment. Major plant expansion is planned for 2029–2036. A multi-billion-dollar project will construct a new enrichment building starting in 2029. This will add 2.1m SWU, scaling overall capacity from 4.3m to over 7m SWU, with the initial cascades starting production in 2032 and additional cascades installed by 2036.
UUSA’s expansion programme supports the US Department of Energy’s goals to accelerate the deployment of new domestic capacity and to strengthen the US nuclear fuel supply chain to meet the expected increase in demand from utilities operating nuclear plants in the US and allied nations.
“The prospects for the US nuclear industry are exciting, and we are supporting it with our current capacity installation and the larger projects in the decade ahead,” said John Kirkpatrick, UUSA Managing Director. “As the US nuclear industry works to grow significantly in the coming years, our teams are demonstrating what is possible when plans become actions and results.”
UUSA, legally operated by Louisiana Energy Services (LES), is a critical national asset and the only operational commercial uranium enrichment facility on US soil. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of the European Urenco Group owned one-third by the UK government, one-third by the Dutch government, and one-third jointly by German utilities (EON and RWE).
UUSA is legally registered as Louisiana Energy Services because the facility was originally planned for Louisiana before being relocated to southeastern New Mexico. In1992, through the Treaty of Washington, an agreement between the US government and the three European states permitted the transfer of classified gas centrifuge technology into the US.
In 2006 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued its first-ever combined construction and operating licence to LES and construction began in December 2006. The facility officially commenced operations in June 2010, marking the first new nuclear project built in the US in nearly 30 years. The initial commercial product delivery to a utility customer was finalised in March 2012.
The site uses energy-efficient Zippe-type gas centrifuges to separate uranium isotopes (U-235 from U-238). Operating with its original 64 baseline cascades, the facility outputs roughly 4.3m SWU a year. The five new cascades 0.4375m SWU giving a current capacity of 4.7375m SWU. The site supports a permanent local workforce of over 500 employees and long-term contractors.
