TerraPower has announced plans to team with nuclear fuel and services provider Centrus Energy to establish commercial-scale, domestic production capabilities for high-assay, low-enriched uranium. This, it says, will be needed to fuel many next-generation reactor designs, including the recently announced Natrium Power Storage System designed by TerraPower and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy.

The US Department of Commerce and Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom have initialled a draft amendment to extend the Agreement Suspending the Antidumping Investigation on Uranium from the Russian Federation, which expires this year. The amendment, if finalised, will extend the deal to 2040 and "reduce US reliance on uranium from Russia" for the next 20 years.

GE-Hitachi Global Laser Enrichment and the US Department of Energy have signed an amendment to their agreement on the sale of depleted uranium hexafluoride inventories underpinning plans for a commercial laser enrichment facility at Paducah in Kentucky. Separately, the DOE has formalised how it plans to dispose of any waste depleted uranium oxides from its former gaseous diffusion enrichment plants.

The US nuclear industry had its "best year ever" in 2019, as it "led the world" in generating more than 809 terawatt hours of electricity, Rita Baranwal, assistant secretary for nuclear energy at the Department of Energy, said yesterday. Despite this achievement, the country's ability to produce domestic nuclear fuel is "on the verge of a collapse", she added.

Support for the development of next-generation technologies and advanced fuels outlined in the report of the US Nuclear Fuel Working Group, published last week, will enable the country to remain competitive in this area, the Nuclear Energy Institute has said. Meanwhile, fuel cycle company Centrus said immediate action to restore the viability of the front-end of the US nuclear fuel cycle supports work to demonstrate the production of high-assay low-enriched uranium nuclear fuels and to establish an assured US supply base.

Kazatomprom announced today it has completed the sale of its 50% interest (minus one share) in Uranium Enrichment Centre JSC (UEC) to its partner in the joint venture, TVEL. The world's biggest uranium producer disclosed the RUB6.253 billion (about USD100 million) transaction with the nuclear fuel manufacturer subsidiary of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom in January.

French nuclear fuel cycle company Orano has been authorised to begin dismantling the Georges Besse diffusion enrichment plant at the Tricastin complex in southeastern France. The plant was shut down in June 2012 following 33 years of service and was replaced by the centrifuge-based Georges Besse II plant.

Kazatomprom announced today it intends to sell its 50% interest (minus one share) in Uranium Enrichment Centre JSC to its partner in the joint venture, TVEL, for RUB6.253 billion (about USD100 million). TVEL is the nuclear fuel manufacturer subsidiary of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom. The Kazakh uranium producer said the decision was based on its "value-driven strategy", as well as its review of current uranium enrichment market conditions.

Iran said yesterday it will ignore the limit on the number of uranium enrichment centrifuges agreed under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), thus withdrawing from the last operational restriction imposed by the 2015 deal. The statement, reported by the Mehr news agency, followed the US assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani last week.

Silex Systems Limited and Cameco Corporation have executed an agreement to jointly purchase GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy's 76% interest in GE-Hitachi Global Laser Enrichment LLC for a total of USD20 million. The purchase will be conditional amongst other things on an existing agreement to purchase depleted uranium tails from the US Department of Energy remaining in place. GLE is the exclusive licensee for SILEX laser uranium enrichment technology.
 

France's Orano will supply a second depleted uranium hexafluoride defluorination plant to TVEL's JSC Electrochemical Plant in Zelenogorsk in Russia's Krasnoyarsk Region under a EUR40 million (USD44 million) contract awarded by Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom. The first facility has been in operation at the site for ten years.

TVEL has announced the suspension of its work to upgrade the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant because Iran fed uranium hexafluoride into two gas centrifuge cascades located in the same room as the cascades meant to be reengineered for stable medical isotope production.