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round up
NUCLEAR FUEL THE UK’S SIZEWELL C has signed contracts with Urenco and Framatome for the provision of enriched uranium services and nuclear fuel fabrication. The 3,200 MWe Sizewell C NPP, being built by EDF Energy, will feature two EPR reactors using replica designs developed during the construction of Hinkley Point C NPP. The project secured a Final Investment Decision in July 2025.
JAPAN NUCLEAR FUEL Ltd (JNFL) has received natural uranium at its enrichment plant in the village of Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, northeastern Japan, for the first time in 11 years. JNFL resumed production at the enrichment plant in 2023 and has been using previously stored uranium. The plant received a total of about 625 tonnes of uranium shipped from Canada.
USED FUEL HOLTEC INTERNATIONAL HAS shipped the first state-of-the-art Spent Fuel Storage Racks to India for deployment at the six-unit Kudankulam NPP in the southern state of Tamil Nadu and which is equipped with VVER-1000 reactors. The completed modules, co-produced by Holtec Asia in Pune and its parent Holtec International, will be installed in a freestanding configuration in a new wet storage facility being built at the Kudankulam site.
RADWASTE AN INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC Energy Agency (IAEA) Integrated Review Service for Radioactive Waste and Spent Fuel Management, Decommissioning and Remediation (Artemis) follow-up mission has evaluated Spain’s progress since the initial Artemis mission in October 2018. The team concluded that all recommendations and suggestions had been addressed. The follow-up mission was carried out at the request of the Government of Spain and hosted by the Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge.
D&D JAPAN’S CHUBU ELECTRIC Power Company has removed the upper lid of the reactor pressure vessel at unit 1 of the Hamaoka NPP Omaezaki, Shizuoka Prefecture. Unit 2 underwent a similar procedure in March. Hamaoka 1&2 are the first nuclear power reactors in Japan to undergo reactor dismantling.
Russian Federation
Work begins on low power NPP Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev and Azim Akhmedkhadzhaev, head of Uzatom, have launched the initial stage of work on the construction of a low-power NPP (ASMM – Atomnoi Stantsii Maloi Moshnosti). The first stage includes the development of a pit for an ASMM with a RITM-200N reactor, being built in the Jizzakh region of Uzbekistan. About 1.5m cubic metres of soil will be removed for the pit, which will be 13 metres deep. By the end of 2025, design documentation will be developed and sent for consideration to Uzatom. In May 2024, a protocol was signed amending
the intergovernmental agreement on the construction of a nuclear power plant in Uzbekistan. This expanded cooperation, which now provides for the construction of NPPs of both large and small capacities. In May 2025, Rosatom began manufacturing reactor equipment: an ingot of special alloy steel weighing 205 tonnes was cast, from which the hull of the future RITM-200N reactor will be created. In September, additional documents
were signed further expanding cooperation. According to these documents, the project will include two high-power power units based on VVER-1000 generation 3+ reactors and two power units with RITM-200N reactors with a capacity of 55 MW each. The parties also signed contracts for the supply of fuel for both small and large NPPs. Uzbekistan plans to launch the large NPP
by 2035, according to Uzatom Director Azim Akhmedkhadjaev. He said the first SMR unit is expected to begin operations in 2029, followed by a second unit six months later. The first reactor of the large-scale plant is expected to come online in 2033, followed by the second in 2035. Uzbekistan said it aims to have completed the design for the SMR project by the end of 2025 so that the “main phase of its implementation can begin in 2026”.
United States Urenco USA 10% LEU+ approved Urenco USA has received authorisation from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to enrich uranium up to 10% U-235, known as low-enriched uranium plus (LEU+). NRC’s authorisation came after Urenco USA implemented changes in its plant systems and procedures and completed an operational readiness review. Initial production of LEU+ will take place this year, with the first product deliveries to a fuel fabricator planned for 2026. Urenco USA received licence amendments
from NRC in December 2024 and August 2025. In future, all of the plant’s existing and future cascades will be licensed to produce both LEU (enriched up to 5%) and LEU+. Preparing for LEU+ production required over 100,000 hours of work, with significant emphasis on engineering, the development of new procedures, and the
10 | November 2025 |
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implementation of more than 30 new IROFS (Items Relied on for Safety). This process also involved more than 250 modifications to license basis and programme documents. Urenco said LEU+ will create new opportunities for the current US reactor fleet by allowing for longer operating cycles with fewer refuelling outages, reducing operations and maintenance costs. Many advanced reactor technologies currently planned for deployment will also be able to use LEU+ as fuel. LEU+ can also serve as an important
feedstock for a future US enrichment facility designed to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) and will increase the amount of HALEU that facility can produce, supporting the deployment of advanced reactor designs. Urenco USA, the only commercial producer of enriched uranium in the US, operates the National Enrichment Facility in Eunice, New Mexico, that began operations in 2010 and has the capacity to meet approximately one-third of the enrichment needs of US commercial NPPs. To strengthen the US nuclear fuel supply chain and support a transition away from a reliance on enriched uranium from Russia, the company is expanding its production capacity 15% by mid-2027. Already this year, two new centrifuge cascades have been brought online ahead of schedule and on budget.
Brazil INVAP in Multipurpose Reactor deal The President of Brazil’s National Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN – Comissào National de Energia Nuclear), Francisco Rondinelli Junior, and the CEO of Argentina’s state-owned private technology company INVAP (INVestigación APlicada – applied research), Dario Sergio Giussi, have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the Brazilian Multipurpose Reactor (RMB – Reator Multipropósito Brasileiro). The MOU aims to establish the terms,
conditions and premises that will guide negotiations between CNEN and INVAP, for the conclusion of the EPC (Engineering, Procurement, Construction) Contract for the technological complex that will house the RMB in Ipero (Sorocaba, Sao Paulo), with all its laboratory facilities, operational infrastructure and logistics support. The RMB will be a 30 MWt open-pool
research reactor, similar to Argentina’s RA- 10 multipurpose reactor currently under construction with operation scheduled in the next year or two. INVAP signed the agreement in 2013 to build the two research reactors – one in each country – with the reference design to be the Open Pool Australian Light-water (Opal) research reactor that INVAP supplied to the Australian Nuclear Science & Technology Organisation.
The RMB is a priority project for the
technological development of the nuclear sector in Brazil. It is included in the Federal Government’s Growth Acceleration Programme
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