Centrus Energy said it made its first delivery of high-assay low-enriched uranium to the U.S. Department of Energy, fulfilling its initial obligation under a contract to make the material for a new generation of nuclear reactors.
The company made it under the wire of the first phase of its current contract, which covered a two-year base period in which it was to produce 20 kilograms of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) for DOE’s inspection by Dec. 31.
If the HALEU passes muster with DOE, the agency would put Centrus on the hook to produce 900 kilograms of HALEU at its American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio, by December 2024 in the second phase of the contract’s base period.
Centrus is keeping the HALEU in a storage facility it constructed at Portsmouth until DOE comes to collect the material in government-furnished cylinders, the company said in its statement.
DOE awarded Centrus its current HALEU production contract in 2022. With options, the deal is worth up to $1 billion over 10 years. The pact is a follow-up to a sole-source award with Centrus from 2019, under which the company built 16 AC100M centrifuges in a leased facility at Portsmouth.
The first phase of the contract included a 50-percent cost share requirement for Centrus, with the company and DOE each contributing about $30 million of the $60 million overall cost, Centrus said. In the second phase, DOE will pay Centrus on a cost-plus incentive fee basis for the HALEU the company produces.
HALEU is 19.75% uranium-235 by mass, just below the threshold of what is considered highly enriched uranium, under international conventions.
DOE’s Office of Science wants the HALEU to help with agency efforts to commercialize new reactor designs, but Centrus’ experience with the latest Portsmouth cascade also gives the company experience it could leverage for national defense programs, eventually including nuclear weapons programs, under the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Domestic Uranium Enrichment Program.
