Urenco Group

Urenco Group is a British company that specializes, in particular, in enrichment uranium (using gas centrifuge technology), which is one of the technological cycles in the production process nuclear fuel for nuclear power plants.

Aktivs

In 2023, the company owns uranium enrichment facilities in Germany, the Netherlands, Britain and the USA and supplies fuel for nuclear power plants in 15 countries of the world with a global share in the world market for uranium enrichment services of about 29%.

History

2024: Receives British government grant to produce high-volume low-enriched uranium

The agency Bloomberg in May 2024 published material on efforts Britain to combat the Russia market. As uranium fuel an example, journalists cited Urenco, which received a government grant of $246 million for the production of high-volume low-enriched uranium (HALEU).

HALEU is uranium with enrichment from 5 to 20%, which at this time is used not at nuclear power plants, but in medical and research reactors. In the future, it is supposed to be used in small modular reactors (MMPs), but they still exist only on paper.

The amount of the grant for the first HALEU production in Europe is small. These funds will be enough for the construction of a small line for enriching uranium up to 20%, but again not for industrial needs, but for research reactors, experimental assemblies and the production of medical isotopes.

Therefore, the British initiative does not take a big step in diversifying the supply chains of low-enriched uranium. The most likely consumers of HALEU in the West will be the Netherlands and Canada as major suppliers of medical isotopes.

2023: Extension of the contract with the Ukrainian Energoatom for the supply of enriched uranium to 2035 g

In November 2023, President of NAEK Energoatom Petr Kotin and CEO of British Urenco Boris Schucht signed a contract for the supply of enriched uranium for Ukrainian nuclear power plants for up to 2035. The contracts concluded in 2019 expire in 2025, so it was important for Energoatom to extend the agreements, the NAEK press service notes.

According to the Ukrainian company in the telegram channel, the contract assumes the possibility of prolongation until 2043.

For his part, the Minister of Energy of Ukraine German Galushchenko said that the country is working to increase the production of nuclear fuel, one of the components of which is enriched uranium.

According to Energoatom, after the abandonment of Russian nuclear fuel, Westinghouse became the only supplier of fuel assemblies for nuclear power plants in Ukraine, and Urenco provides Westinghouse with enriched uranium for their production.