Centrus Energy, of Bethesda, Md., said Thursday it has received a one-year, $25 million contract from UT-Battelle to continue the experimental uranium enrichment program known as the American Centrifuge at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
The American Centrifuge project has shrunk considerably since 2015, when the Energy Department pulled the plug on an industrial-scale centrifuge demonstration site in Pike County, Ohio. Centrus’ Pike County headcount has fallen to under 150 from about 300 in 2015.
Meanwhile, core American Centrifuge technology development continues at Oak Ridge, even as Centrus works on a decontamination and decommissioning plan for the Pike County facility.
Under the deal just announced, Centrus will “develop and test technology improvements to reduce costs, improve manufacturability, and enhance long-term reliability of U.S. uranium enrichment technology,” the company said in Thursday’s press release.
Centrus’ current one-year American Centrifuge contract at Oak Ridge, which expires Sept. 30, is worth just over $32 million. The deal took longer to finalize than Centrus expected, so the company had to self-fund the work at Oak Ridge for almost six months; UT-Battelle front-loaded the present contract significantly to make Centrus whole for that work.
UT-Battelle runs the Oak Ridge National Laboratory for the Energy Department under a roughly $20-billion, 20-year prime contract that expires in 2020.
