The US Department of Energy has asked for public comment on the effects of potential transfers of its excess uranium inventory on the country's uranium mining, conversion and enrichment industries. The DOE's request was issued the day after the US Government Accountability Office raised issues related to excess uranium transfers over the past decade including questions on the DOE's assessment of market impact studies; the valuation of depleted uranium tails; and the legality of some transfers.

Mid-America Conversion Services - a joint venture of Atkins, Westinghouse and Fluor - has received approval from the US Department of Energy to begin operation of its depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion facilities.

Iran has for the first time injected uranium hexafluoride gas into its IR-8 uranium enrichment centrifuges. The development of the next-generation centrifuges is being carried out within the framework of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran said.

The US Department of Energy has agreed to sell around 300,000 tonnes of depleted uranium hexafluoride to GE Hitachi Global Laser Enrichment for re-enrichment at a proposed plant to be built near DOE's Paducah site in Kentucky. The agreement paves the way for commercialisation of Silex laser enrichment technology.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) yesterday awarded Mid-America Conversion Services, a joint venture of Atkins, Fluor and Westinghouse, a $318 million five-year contract to operate facilities to convert depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) at its plants at Paducah, Kentucky and Portsmouth, Ohio.

The impartiality of the International Atomic Energy Agency was "indispensable" to the high-level political agreement reached last year on Iran's nuclear-related activities, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano told delegates at the Agency's 60th General Conference in Vienna yesterday.

The last of five buildings making up the US Department of Energy's former Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant has been demolished, completing a ten-year program to remove all the former uranium enrichment buildings at the East Tennessee site.

Urenco has today reported a net loss of €8.5 million ($9.6 million) as a result of adverse exchange rate movements and significant weakening of pound sterling in its financial results for the half year ending 30 June 2016. The net loss compares with a net gain in the same period of 2015 of €166 million.

 Urenco is to supply uranium enrichment to Ukraine under a contract signed today by the Anglo-Dutch company and Ukrainian national nuclear company Energoatom.

The heads of Kazakh uranium producer KazAtomProm and China's CITIC Group have met to discuss attracting investment to the Central Asian country's nuclear energy sector. Askar Zhumagaliyev and Chang Zhenming met as part of the working visit to China of Kazakhstan's first deputy prime minister, Bakytzhan Sagintayev.

Industrias Nucleares do Brasil (INB) is to export its first enriched uranium under a contract signed with Argentine state company Combustibles Nuclear Argentinos SA (Conuar). The agreement will see the export of four tonnes of uranium dioxide powder for use in the first fuel load for the Carem modular reactor.

The final piece of process gas equipment has been removed from one of three former process buildings at the former Portsmouth gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment plant in Ohio, USA.