Centrus Energy said this week it anticipates completing cleanup of its retired advanced centrifuge technology demonstration site in Piketon, Ohio, by the end of the year.
Decontamination and decommissioning of the American Centrifuge facility began in the second quarter of 2016 after the Department of Energy cut off funding for the project the year before and Centrus stopped pouring in its own money.
Under an agreement with the Energy Department and Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Centrus puts up surety bonds to ensure the D&D costs are funded at the facility in the event the company goes out of business. There are $29.6 million worth of bonds, according to Centrus’ latest 10-Q filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Centrus has not released a cost figure for the D&D. But the accrued liability on its balance sheet at the end of 2016 was $38.6 million. The Bethesda, Md., company had reduced that sum to $16.6 million as of Sept. 30.
In September 2015, Centrus began winding down its three-year demonstration of the American Centrifuge technology at the DOE’s Portsmouth Site when federal funding dried up.
The demonstration had 120 centrifuges linked together in a cascade to simulate industrial operation of what Centrus management says would be highly efficient gas centrifuges to produce enriched uranium for nuclear power and national security activities.
The machines are being taken apart and shipped offsite for disposal. Some of the material is being sent straight to DOE’s Nevada National Security Site for disposal, while other material is sent first to Oak Ridge, Tenn., for additional cleaning. The scope of the shipments includes all wastes from the D&D of the cascade. Centrus Energy has not disclosed the number or volume of the shipments.
Centrus used its own money to keep the demonstration going until February 2016, but Congress never provided more money to restart the project. The company has since 2014 conducted more limited research and development of the technology at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Centrus noted that its $25 million government contract with UT-Battelle, which operates Oak Ridge, expired on Sept. 30. The deal was recently replaced with a new $16 million contract that runs through the end of September 2018.
Centrus is a much smaller company than in the days when it – then called USEC — operated enrichment plants at Piketon and Paducah, Ky. In the nine months ended Sept. 30, Centrus had special charges of $2.2 million, which was mostly employee termination benefits dating to layoffs started in the fourth quarter of 2015.
The former USEC emerged from a prepackaged Chapter 11 reorganization as Centrus Energy in September 2014. It currently employs about 338 people, said company spokesman Jeremy Derryberry. By comparison, the Paducah enrichment facility itself employed over 1,200 people when production was going strong.
Centrus remains a supplier of enriched uranium for nuclear power plants. The company takes shipments of low-enriched uranium from suppliers such as the Russian government company TENEX.
The SEC filing came in the wake of Centrus latest earnings report on Nov. 9, for the third quarter ended Sept. 30.
Management reported a net loss of $8.5 million for the quarter, well below the $41.3 million net loss for the third quarter of 2016. Net loss connected to common stockholders was $10.5 million, or $1.15 per basic and diluted share, Centrus said.
Third-quarter revenue rose by 135 percent on a year-over-year basis, from $28.9 million to $50.3 million, the company said in its news release. But revenue for the first nine months of 2017 declined $73.3 million, or 42 percent, to $101.5 million.
Centrus has been seeking to diversify its business. In September Centrus signed a memorandum of understanding to work on fuel development for advanced reactors being planned by X-energy.
The company added that it expects to meet its 2017 guidance of $200 million to $225 million in revenue. Management expects more than half of its revenue for 2017 will be realized in the fourth quarter due to timing of company orders. Centrus expects to end 2017 with somewhere between $150 million to $175 million in cash. The company’s cash balance at the end of 2016 was $260.7 million
