Bids were due Monday on a DOE contract to produce energy-dense uranium fuel using a cascade that Centrus Energy Corp. has nearly finished building at the agency’s Portsmouth Site near Piketon, Ohio.
The potentially 10-year contract, officially opened to all bidders in June, calls for production of a much larger volume of high assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU) than DOE originally reserved the right to order from Centrus when the agency sole-sourced the Bethesda, Md., company an 80-20 cost-share contract in 2019 to build the cascade.
With options, the new completion contract calls for production of 900 kilograms of HALEU, compared with the 200 kilograms DOE could have ordered from Centrus using an option on the contract 2019 contract. The agency opted not to pick up the option. Several advanced reactors on the drawing board at various manufacturers would require HALEU fuel.
Spokespersons for ORANO USA and Urenco USA, which enrich uranium in the United States, did not immediately reply to requests for comments Monday afternoon about the HALEU Demonstration Cascade Completion contract. Bids were due to DOE at 11 p.m. Eastern time.
“We’re pleased that the Department of Energy has issued a request for proposal that is expected to fund the next stage of the HALEU demonstration and potentially support years of operation and production beyond that,” a Centrus spokesperson wrote in a statement Tuesday morning. “We are bidding because we see this as the next logical step in moving from demonstration to production.”
Centrus’ 2019 sole-source HALEU deal with DOE is now worth $154 million, according to the company’s latest 10-Q filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That compares with $115 million at the time of the award.
That 2019 deal was an 80-20 cost-share contract with the government picking up the lion’s share. The competitively awarded follow-on contract includes a 50-50 cost share for an early phase. If the company wins the follow-on, that requirement “could have a material impact on the Company’s liquidity” Centrus said in the Aug. 5 10-Q filing.
Under a series of modifications and extensions that Centrus and DOE said were necessary because of COVID-related supply chain problems on the agency’s side, the company’s current HALEU deal calls for Centrus to bring the 16-machine cascade to the brink of operations by the end of the contract in November. DOE has authorized work to continue through August.
