As U.S. nuclear power continues a resurgence, two private companies that lead domestic uranium production have announced plans to expand facilities that will increase production.
Centrus Energy has finalized a contract with the US Department of Energy to deploy, now on a commercial scale, high-assay, low-enriched uranium, called HALEU, at the company’s American centrifuge plant in Piketon, Ohio. The $1.07 billion firm-fixed-price contract includes the competitively bid $900 million task order the agency awarded earlier this year, along with options to buy up to $170 million in bonded uranium for DOE missions.
In February, Centrus selected Fluor Corp. to act as the engineering, procurement and construction contractor for a previously announced multi-billion dollar phased expansion of the Piketon plant’s enrichment capabilities. The facility is on the site of DOE’s Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant that closed in 2001.
According to a Centrus announcement, the initial build will include 12 metric tons of annual HALEU production, as well as the ability to cover the company’s $2.4 billion low-enriched uranium (LEU) portfolio, with further production expansions subject to customer demand.
Centrus expects the new Piketon capacity to be online starting in 2029. At the same time, Centrus is investing $560 million to transition its technology and manufacturing center in Oak Ridge, Tenn., to produce high-speed manufacturing centrifuges. The Oak Ridge plant is the only uranium enrichment centrifuge manufacturing facility in the US
New Mexico uranium site expansion begins
Meanwhile, the operator of the National Enrichment Facility, the only commercial uranium enrichment site in the U.S., has announced plans for a privately funded multibillion-dollar expansion at its Eunice, NM complex that would increase enriched uranium production by 50%.
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Urenco USA plans to begin construction in 2027 on a new process building that will house up to 24 gas centrifuge cascades for a total of 2.1 million work units of new enrichment capacity. The new falls would begin to occur in 2032, and others would be installed until 2036.
About 15 million separate work units of uranium enrichment capacity were purchased by US civilian nuclear reactors in 2024, with only 19% originating in the US, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
A spokesman said the company is weighing supply chain options for the expansion, including the selection of EPC contractors, and plans to complete it by 2027. “We are well into the design process for the new plant and expect to proceed quickly once we have selected supply chain partners,” the spokesman said.
In a separate upgrade project that will also begin next year, Urenco USA plans to restore the capacity of existing waterfalls at the facility. It has been operating since 2010 and has an existing annual capacity of 4.3 million separate work units, about one-third of current US demand. A 700,000-unit expansion that began last year in an existing building will be completed in 2027.
In addition to serving as the primary fuel for existing commercial light water nuclear reactors, which generate nearly 20% of US electricity, the low-enriched uranium produced at the facility will be an essential feedstock for producing high-assay low-enriched uranium for use in advanced reactor designs expected in the 2030s.
The US program is part of a larger effort by UK-based parent Urenco USA to add new beneficiation capacity at sites in the Americas and Europe over the next decade. It is also building a facility in England to convert more depleted uranium hexafluoride “tails” for later use, or into a chemically stable form for disposal.
Bechtel is providing front-end engineering and design services for the project.
