By the time it posted the terms of its contract to build a new uranium enrichment facility at the Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio, Centrus Energy Corp. had already ticked off the first milestone on the $115 million pact with the Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
Milestone 1 in the contract, the undefinitized version of which was posted online last week, calls for the company to withdraw its request that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) cancel the Bethesda, Md.-based fuel provider’s license to enrich uranium at the site of the now-decommissioned American Centrifuge Project.
The NRC confirmed Aug. 10 that it had received the request filed on June 26: well in advance of the July 1 deadline required by the company’s new contract with DOE. The commission said it then closed Centrus’ request for withdrawal.
The Energy Department plans to finalize Centrus’ new centrifuge contract by Oct. 31, CEO Daniel Poneman told investors last week during a quarterly earnings calls. The deal, awarded May 31, is a no-fee, cost-sharing pact, with Centrus paying 20% and DOE paying 80%, according to the contract.
The pact calls for Centrus to build a 16-machine enrichment cascade using its AC-100M centrifuge: one of two technologies the Energy Department’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is considering as the backbone of a new domestic enrichment capability that could supply uranium for nuclear weapons and warships.
The contract with the Office of Science, first announced in January, calls on Centrus to produce 600 kilograms of high-assay low-enriched uranium fuel by June 1, 2020. The deal has two years of firm funding, with a one-year option that covers final assembly of the cascade and production at Portsmouth.
