The Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio plans to extend by up to a year an existing business deal with a New Mexico-based uranium enrichment services company, according to a federal online procurement notice.
DOE’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office plans to extend the existing agreement with Louisiana Energy Services, so that it expires on Feb. 21, 2025. Otherwise, it would end Feb. 22, according to the Monday notice in the System for Awards Management at SAM.gov.
The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant needs a contractor for physical receipt, storage and “book transfers” of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) to other entities from DOE, according to the notice. The contract includes reporting into the Nuclear Materials Management & Safeguards System.
Uranium hexafluoride (UF6) is used in uranium enrichment for nuclear fuel.
Urenco’s Louisiana Energy Services is located in Eunice, N.M., roughly an hour from DOE’sWaste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. The facility, which was initially to be built in Louisiana, is the only commercial enrichment facility operating in the United States.
The facility, also known as Urenco-USA, could prove a potential alternative source to Centrus Energy for production of high assay low enriched uranium. Urenco is ultimately owned by a consortium of European governments.
The Atkins-led Mid-America Conversion Services runs the depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion facilities for DOE at both the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky.
