INT’L ISOTOPES FORMS VENTURE TO BID ON OPERATING PADUCAH PLANT

International Isotopes Inc. and Advanced Process Technology Systems, LLC have formed a joint venture and yesterday announced they submitted a response to the Department of Energy’s Feb. 7 request for Expression of Interest for the operation of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant facilities and utilization of DOE’s depleted uranium hexafluoride. "We are pleased to have the opportunity to expand our relationship with APTS and pursue this proposal with the DOE," Steve Laflin, president and CEO of INIS, said in the statement. The proposal is currently being reviewed, and INIS said in a release yesterday it was announcing the move "because there have been indications that information on the proposal has been disclosed by unknown sources."

Last week INIS told investors that it would seek to secure a contract to treat some of the Department of Energy’s stockpile of depleted uranium hexafluoride, and indicated that may be pivotal to the company’s ability to secure financing for its planned depleted uranium deconversion and fluorine extraction facility in Lea County, N.M. DOE’s DUF6 conversion plants at Paducah and Portsmouth have encountered a myriad of technical and process issues, INIS said last week, and the company estimated the plants would only run at about 50 percent of their originally-stated capacities. INIS’ Laflin said in the April 1 call that the company believes it can “offer deconversion service to DOE at a lower cost and not threaten to continued operations of its own deconversion facility.” INIS and APTS would plan to retain 600 to 700 employees for the operation of the PGDP and supporting facilities and believes that it would be able to operate the facility for a minimum of five years and perhaps several more years, according to the statement. INIS also clarified: "Our pursuit of this proposal in no way alters our plans for the construction and operation of our depleted uranium de-conversion and fluorine extraction processing facility near Hobbs, New Mexico. In fact, there is clearly a synergistic relationship between the PGDP opportunity and the plans for that facility.