Urenco is one of the few companies in the world that enriches uranium. It’s one of an even smaller group of enrichers that aren’t owned by the Russian, Chinese or Iranian governments. It plays a key role in the western world’s nuclear fuel cycle.
That role became even more important after February, 2022.
With the increasingly firm prospects of a long term increase in demand for its foundational product of low enriched uranium (LEU) and a looming demand for new enrichment products like LEU+ (low enriched uranium that has greater than 5% and less than 10% U-235 content) and HALEU (high assay, low enriched uranium with U-236 concentration of 10-20%) Urenco has embarked on a program to expand its capacity.
Like most other nuclear industry participants, Urenco is a conservative company that carefully considers its investments before adding capacity that might not be needed. The nature of its production technology – incredibly sophisticated centrifuges that can spin continuously for decades if not excessively cycled – encourages even more caution in the direction of ensuring that there is demand before investing many millions into new production capacity.
Magnus Mori, Urenco’s head of marketing and technical sales, visited the Atomic Show to provide greater insights and details about Urenco’s history and unusual ownership structure, the factors that influence its investment decisions and the prospects that the company sees for future demand for its products. He explained the material flows into an out of an enrichment facility, including the actual compound that are handled at various stages of the process.
We spoke about the UK government’s support for new production capacity and its decision to invest in a new enrichment plant to produce HALEU. We even spoke about new businesses that use centrifuges to produce valuable medical, research and industrial materials that are not part of the nuclear energy fuel cycle.
I think you’ll enjoy this show. You might even learn some new details about the nuclear fuel cycle. Please participate in the comments.
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