SPECIAL REPORT | RESPONDING TO RUSSIAN FUEL BAN
Above left: Canisters of low- enriched uranium. Uranium imports from Russia will be banned from the US Source: IAEA
Above right: Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant, owned by TVEL Fuel Company, part of Rosatom
Earlier this year Urenco responded to a request
for proposals from the Department of Energy to acquire HALEU enrichment services as part of its HALEU Availability Programme, while in the UK, this month the government announced a grant of £196m ($249m) to Urenco to support the construction of an advanced fuels facility at its Capenhurst enrichment site in England. According to Neumayr, the company is “following a dual-track approach in both the UK and in the US, so we have an interest in the potential – subject to market demand – and contracts to build a HALEU facility in the US as well.” She also noted that “we use our existing facilities, and we’re currently in a licencing process at our New Mexico site, to go up to 10% enrichment levels.”
ASP Isotopes: Beating the clock Paul Mann, CEO/CFO at enrichment company ASP Isotopes, says the US ban “hasn’t affected our plans one bit”. The company’s goal, he says, “has always been to build multiple HALEU facilities in multiple countries to produce the HALEU the world needs to power the reactors of the future”. To this end, Mann says, ASPI is on track to construct its first stable isotope enrichment facility outside its primary location in South Africa (where its first isotope facility has just begun commercial production), which Mann confirms will be in Iceland. Mann says the difference between ASPI’s enrichment plants, which use proprietary technology based on quantum-mechanical principles, and ‘traditional’ enrichment plants lies in a more or less nimble response to market conditions. “When you look at the current prices of nuclear fuel supply chain components,” he explains, “uranium ore, yellowcake, are up fivefold in the last 18 months or so; conversion costs are up three- to fivefold, and the enrichment cost, dollar per SWU, is up threefold. There hasn’t really been a supply-side response to that – and that shows you how hard it is to build new capacity in this industry.” ASPI’s plants, Mann says, “are much smaller and simpler”
compared to other designs. “We believe we can build a plant in less than two years for a lot less capital. We can build an enrichment facility much faster; that’s why we have large US multinationals wanting to fund us. All we need is the green light to go and build the plant.” SMRs, he adds, “are really critical because they will enable cheap energy to the world and allow us to have a slight chance of meeting 2050 climate goals.” SMRs will
18 | June 2024 |
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“bring nuclear engineering onto production-line economics and collapse the cost of building a nuclear reactor”. But in the meantime while SMR technology is commercialised, “the best-case scenario is that we muddle along, managing to get waivers to keep importing some Russian uranium, and the power grid keeps going – and then maybe, by mid-2030, we start to see some SMRs come through.” Mann also points out that there is further risk involved in dependence on the Russian nuclear supply chain. “It’s not just uranium that the US imports. Every PWR has a tablespoon of lithium-7 salt in it to maintain the pH – and all that lithium-7 salt comes from Russia. If Russia decides to stop supplying the lithium-7 salt, [those reactors] may have to shut down.”
Madison Metals: “Miners will benefit greatly” Duane Parnham, Executive Chair, CEO and Director at Canadian mining firm Madison Metals, says junior miners and producers in the uranium space “will be watching closely for the outcomes” of the current geopolitical plays. “The US ban and Russia’s war in Ukraine have heightened
supply chain sensitivities, potentially driving increased demand for alternative sources of uranium like ours, which are located in geopolitically stable countries (Namibia and Canada),” he notes. “Traditionally the global uranium market has enjoyed easily accessible and cheap uranium in the short term. Now with sanctions on Russia through the US bill, supply/demand imbalances are projected and emphasis will now be on medium to longer-term contract delivery and pricing.” The bill means the US will “scramble to secure new
supply lines,” he says, “not only for yellowcake but for registered conversion facilities. For explorers, this will be instant gratification. Funds spent directly into development can be realised rather quickly, whereas the conversion bottleneck takes more capital, planning, permitting etc. In addition, miners will need to increase production and developers will need to find new deposits and build new mines now to meet this growth and longer-term demand.” Madison Metals, he says, “can fast-track production to meet the new levels of demand. In addition, our future production is uncommitted, so we can sell at today’s spot price. Expect further supply chain disruption and increased spot conversion and swap prices. Miners will benefit greatly. No doubt, it will be interesting to see how this plays out for our sector,” Parnham concludes.
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