RESPONDING TO RUSSIAN FUEL BAN | SPECIAL REPORT
Left: The Rosatom uranium mining company Priargunsky Industrial Mining and Chemical Union located in Krasnokamensk in the Trans-Baikal Territory
20%. HALEU is the fuel on which many advanced and small modular reactor (SMR) designs are based, and it is currently commercially supplied only by Russia, although China can produce it and US-based Centrus Energy began generating it from a demonstration cascade in 2023.
Orono: Restart, reuse, recycle France-headquartered uranium enricher Orono is exploring a number of ways to boost its uranium output and otherwise prepare for an uncertain future. In February the group signed a MOU with sustainable energy firm Shine Technologies to develop a US pilot plant designed to recycle used nuclear fuel from light water reactors. The recovered material can be reused in the fabrication process for new fuel for both existing and advanced reactor designs. (Previously, in December 2023, Orono announced that it would supply enriched uranium to Canadian utility Ontario Power Generation to power Canada’s first SMR project, GE Hitachi’s BWRX-300 SMR1 reactor.) Orono and Canadian exploration and development
company Denison Mines also announced plans earlier this year to restart Saskatchewan’s McClean Lake uranium mine, where operations were suspended in 2008 in response to declining uranium prices, Orano said in a statement. The two companies have formed a joint venture, the McClean Lake Joint Venture (MLJV), with Orano Canada as operator with a 77.5% stake and Denison with a 22.5% share. The JV will use its own patented Surface Access Borehole Resource Extraction (SABRE) mining technology, with work planned to begin in 2025 and to produce around 800,000 pounds (363,000kg) of U3
O8 , Orano said. Both Denison President and CEO David Cates and Jim
Corman, President and CEO at Orano Canada, cited uranium prices as a determining factor in their decision to restart the McClean Lake facility. Corman termed the move “a return to a focus on growth” and said it was the result of “a long- term investment in R&D… to secure continued activities at the McClean Lake operation well into the future”, adding that the McClean Lake mill is expected to have sufficient capacity to process the ore.
Urenco: Ramping up capacity Responding to the broader uptick forecast in nuclear generation, in July 2023, global nuclear fuel consortium Urenco had already announced an expansion of its enrichment capacity at its UUSA site in New Mexico. This expansion included the addition to an existing plant of
‘multiple’ new centrifuge cascades, which the company said will provide an additional capacity of around 700 SWU per year, a 15% increase. The first of these new cascades is scheduled to come online in 2025. While the announcement cited ‘the changed geopolitical situation’ and ‘new commitments from US customers for non-Russian fuel’ as among the drivers of increasing customer demand, it also emphasised that the move is part of ‘a long-term plan to extend and refurbish enrichment capacity at our sites.’
Mary Neumayr, Director of Government Affairs at Urenco
USA, notes that the ban was pre-dated by significant US momentum to strengthen the domestic nuclear fuel cycle, and that Urenco’s recent moves take place against a backdrop of ‘strong bipartisan support’ for this focus. As the nation faces an election year, the policy clarity that comes with solid support from both sides of the increasingly polarised political spectrum is crucial for business confidence. Neumayr notes that the Act “is part of a number of bills that have been passed during this Congress,” reflecting ongoing and “very strong support for strengthening the supply chain [and] helping to ensure adequate fuel supplies going forward.” For instance, Congress also recently passed, as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, the Nuclear Fuel Security Act (HR 1086), which “establishe[d] new programmes and expand[ed] existing programmes to increase domestic supplies of certain types of low-enriched uranium”. In addition, US$2.7bn in new funding was part of the DOE appropriations bill passed earlier this year. Neumayr does add, however, that “as the industry is moving away from Russian supply, Urenco has seen an uptick in business”. The company has responded by “working on optimising our operations, including reversing some underfeeding to meet customer demand, and also on restructuring some of our contracts so that if there are excess inventories, we have access to those,” she says. “One of the key steps that we have taken has been
to work on ramping up the supply chain for centrifuges, [which] requires significant investments. Since 2022 we have been working towards ramping up these investments with the centrifuge manufacturer, and working to be in a position to be able to receive new centrifuges to add to our existing facilities. We’ve also reactivated our centrifuge assembly building in New Mexico to be in a position to be able to assemble the centrifuges and install them at our site,” Neumayr notes.
www.neimagazine.com | June 2024 | 17
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