Centrus signs long-term LEU agreement with South Korea

Centrus Energy signed a long-term agreement to supply Korea’s nuclear reactor fleet with low-enriched uranium from the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio, the company announced Wednesday.

Amir Vexler, president and CEO of Centrus, met with Whang Jooho, president and CEO of Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, to sign the contract, according to a LinkedIn post by Centrus..  The contract is contingent on public and private financing of the production of low-enriched uranium (LEU) in Piketon at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site. 

Centrus and the South Korean company have done business with each other previously. Centrus is scheduled to discuss its quarterly financial results Friday. 

“This is the first contract for Korea to purchase enriched uranium produced by an American company in more than 10 years,” Centrus said in the post.. “This agreement demonstrates that there is strong commercial demand for new, American-owned enrichment capacity to enhance competition in the marketplace.

Currently, 100%t of the world’s commercial LEU enrichment capacity belongs to Russian, Chinese, and European state-owned corporations, Centrus said. 

As of December, a spokesperson for the Bethesda, Md.-based uranium broker told the Exchange Monitor in an email that Centrus’ manufacturing supply chain spans 13 states and 14 major suppliers, all of which are American companies. 

“That gives us the ability to build centrifuges that are fully unobligated and can support national security missions,” the spokesperson had said.

Centrus has also recently nabbed spots on two DOE enrichment contracts that the agency put out as part of federal efforts to wean the U.S. off of Russian uranium by 2028.

Centrus’ AC-100M technology could be the foundation of a future uranium enrichment plant that could be used for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s defense work.