Earnings were up year-over-year for Centrus Energy in the third quarter of 2023, when the uranium broker and enrichment technology developer was working on its first batch of high-assay low-enriched uranium for the U.S. government.
The Bethesda, Md., company reported total revenue of $51.3 million and $33.2 million for the three months ended September 30, 2023 and 2022, respectively, an increase of $18.1 million.
Revenue from the company’s flagship low-enriched uranium segment was $40.5 million, up from $20.2 million for the quarter in 2022, an increase of $20.3 million.
The increase was due to the $32.8 million increase in separative work unit revenue, partially offset by the $12.5 million decrease in uranium revenue for the three months ended September 30, 2023. Separative work unit revenue is a measure of the worth of refined uranium fuel sold to utilities. Uranium revenue is the value of natural uranium sales.
For the Technical Solutions segment, where Centrus book keeps its enrichment technology business, quarterly revenue was down to $9.6 million from $12.0 million a year ago, the company reported. The company’s milestone production of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) for the Department of Energy happened after the quarter ended.
“As we pursue our goal of expanding the plant to meet the full range of commercial and national security requirements for enriched uranium, we are heartened by the growing momentum in Congress and the Administration to support a major federal investment in restoring America’s domestic enrichment capacity,” Daniel Poneman, Centrus’ chief executive officer, said in the company’s latest earnings release.
Centrus is the only company in the U.S. with a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to produce HALEU. In early February, the company completed construction and initial testing of a cascade of advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges, from which it must produce a test batch of HALEU by year’s end in order for the NRC to sign off on its entry into rate production.
The company made its first delivery of high-assay low-enriched uranium to the U.S. Department of Energy this week, fulfilling its initial obligation under a contract to make the material for a new generation of nuclear reactors.
HALEU is 19.75% uranium-235 by mass, just below the threshold of what is considered highly enriched uranium, under international conventions.
The company made it under the wire of the first phase of its current HALEU 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.
