Centrus Energy Corp. (NYSE American: LEU) today announced that it is resuming centrifuge manufacturing activities and expanding its manufacturing capacity at its facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The company will invest an additional approximately $60 million for this effort over the next 18 months to lay the groundwork to support a potential large-scale expansion of uranium enrichment at the Centrus' American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio. Such a large-scale expansion would require a multi-billion dollar public and private investment.
This announcement follows Centrus' recent success in securing over $2 billion in contingent purchase commitments from customers to support future production of Low-Enriched Uranium (LEU), as well as two awards from the U.S. Department of Energy aimed at enrichment and deconversion of High-Assay, Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU).
Centrus President and CEO Amir Vexler said: "Today's investment will jump-start what we hope will be a multi-billion dollar public and private commitment to reestablishing America's uranium enrichment capacity at scale while reducing our dependence on foreign nations -- deploying American technology, built by American workers, supported by an American supply chain. The all-American solution we are offering represents the best path forward to ensure a reliable fuel supply for today's reactors, support the deployment of next generation reactors, and meet America's enduring national security needs for enriched uranium. Most importantly, it puts us in position to execute an expansion quickly."
Continued Vexler: "We have always said that restoring U.S. enrichment capacity at scale requires a public-private partnership, including a robust federal investment alongside customer offtake commitments and private capital. This additional investment by Centrus reflects our continued willingness to step up to the plate in such a partnership."
Centrus' American Centrifuge technology is exclusively manufactured at its 440,000 square foot Technology and Manufacturing Center in Oak Ridge and is supported by a nationwide supply chain of 14 major suppliers – all of them American companies – with operations in at least 13 states plus dozens of other smaller suppliers. The only other Western centrifuge technology in commercial operation today is the European centrifuge design, which is exclusively manufactured in the Netherlands.
Federal Investments in Domestic Uranium Enrichment
Centrus is competing for more than $3.4 billion that Congress appropriated to the Department of Energy to jumpstart domestic nuclear fuel production. As part of that effort, Centrus, via its American Centrifuge Operating (ACO) subsidiary, was selected by the Department as one of four awardees under a competitive solicitation aimed at expanding domestic commercial production of HALEU. The contract has a minimum value of $2 million and contract ceiling of $2.7 billion for all awardees. The Department also selected ACO and several other companies under a separate solicitation aimed at HALEU deconversion, a subsequent step in the HALEU production process. A third solicitation, aimed at U.S. production of LEU for existing reactors, has not yet been awarded. The ultimate dollar amount associated with these contracts -- and the potential scale of the expansion supported -- will depend upon task orders subsequently issued by the Department to ACO under these contracts.
