Centrus Completes 900-kg HALEU Delivery to DOE in U.S. Nuclear Fuel Enrichment Milestone

Centrus Energy has produced and delivered 900 kilograms (kg) of High-Assay, Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), completing Phase II of its pioneering enrichment contract with the agency. The shipment marks the first significant domestic production of HALEU—a specialized fuel required for many advanced reactors now under development—and stands as a substantial validation of U.S. centrifuge-based enrichment capabilities after decades of stalled investment in uranium infrastructure.

The milestone, announced on June 25, comes 18 months after Centrus’s wholly owned subsidiary, American Centrifuge Operating LLC (ACO), wrapped up Phase 1 of the three-phase contract. In November 2023, the company delivered its initial 20 kg of HALEU batch to the DOE after it brought its cascade of advanced centrifuges into production at the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio—the first U.S.-owned, U.S.-technology uranium enrichment plant to begin production in 70 years. Phase II of the contract called for Centrus to produce 900 kg of HALEU by June 30, 2025.

The Bethesda, Maryland–headquartered company will now proceed to HALEU enrichment production under Phase III of its contract with the DOE. Centrus on June 20, 2025, noted the DOE exercised an option to prolong the contract for an additional year, which would extend HALEU production through June 30, 2026. “Phase III includes options for up to eight years of additional production beyond June 30, 2026; these options are at the Department’s sole discretion and subject to the availability of appropriations,” the company noted.

“Achievement of this milestone further demonstrates the ability of our technology to deliver results for our customers and for the nation,” said Centrus Energy President and CEO Amir Vexler. “As the only source of HALEU enrichment in the Western world, our product is urgently needed to power the next generation of reactors. As we embark on the next phase of our HALEU production contract for the Department of Energy, we remain focused on the ultimate goal of expanding our capacity in Ohio so that we can meet the full range of America’s commercial and national security requirements for HALEU as well as Low-Enriched Uranium for the existing reactor fleet.”

A Years-Long Effort to Establish Domestic HALEU Capability

The achievement caps a years-long effort by Centrus and the DOE to reestablish domestic uranium enrichment capabilities for the next generation of nuclear reactors. The DOE, under the first Trump administration, first moved to demonstrate domestic HALEU production in 2019, initially signing a three-year, $115 million, cost-shared contract with Centrus that intended to build and operate a16-machine AC100M HALEU cascade at the agency’s Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon. While the DOE modified the contract several times to increase the total contract funding to $158.9 million, it later extended the period of performance to November 2022. Owing to COVID-related supply chain delays that hampered the delivery of HALEU storage cylinders, the DOE ultimately elected to move the operational portion of the demonstration to a new, competitively awarded contract, which Centrus was awarded in November 2022.

In accordance with that contract, Centrus completed Phase I in late 2023 with the launch of enrichment operations and the delivery of 20 kg of HALEU in November 2024. Under Phase II, Centrus was tasked with producing an additional 900 kg by June 30, 2025. On June 17, the DOE executed a contract amendment “to split the first three-year extension period into a one-year extension option followed by a two-year extension option,” Centrus said.

It means “The Department has exercised the first of these options, kicking off Phase III with additional HALEU production through June 30, 2026,” the company noted. “The remaining options in the contract—at the Department’s sole discretion and subject to appropriations—would, if exercised, provide for up to eight additional years of production beyond the current extension.”

For now, the “HALEU produced under this contract belongs to the Department and can be used to advance key national priorities like enabling the demonstration and commercialization of HALEU-fueled advanced reactors,” Centrus noted. However, separate from the operations contract with the DOE, Centrus has been exploring options to scale up the Piketon facility with additional centrifuge cascades, which will rely on “sufficient funding or offtake contracts can be secured.” The company has noted that a full-scale HALEU cascade, consisting of 120 individual centrifuge machines, with a combined capacity of approximately 6,000 kg of HALEU per year (6 MTU/year), “could be brought online within about 42 months of securing the funding to do so. Centrus has the capability to add an additional cascade every six months after that.”

Centrus’s pioneering cascade of 16 AC100M gas centrifuge machines, feed uranium hexafluoride (UF₆) heated to a gaseous state into a rotor inside the centrifuge machine. A rotor spinning at high speed inside a steel casing uses centrifugal force to concentrate the heavier U-238 isotopes at the outer wall of the rotor and the lighter U-235 isotopes toward the rotor center. The streams are then fed to the next machines in a “cascade” to achieve the desired level of enrichment. Centrus uses a 4.95% LEU feed material for its planned HALEU 16 AC100M-centrifuge cascade. It suggests roughly 85% of the separative work units (SWU)—a measure of enrichment needed to produce HALEU—is already contained in the LEU feed material. Courtesy: Centrus Energy

The Urgency for HALEU Supply

While the DOE has not provided explicit confirmation, the initial 900 kg of HALEU from the Piketon facility will likely supplement deliveries to American nuclear technology developers as part of its HALEU Availability program (HAP).

In April, the DOE issued its first round of allocations for HALEU, including conditional commitments to TRISO-X, TerraPower, Kairos Power, Radiant Industries, and Westinghouse Electric Co for HALEU under HAP. The first-round recipients represent Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) Pathway 1 awardees, companies planning to demonstrate reactors in the DOE’s DOME test bed, and select ARDP risk reduction participants. “DOE received HALEU requests from 15 companies,” the agency noted. “For this first round, DOE identified five of those companies that met prioritization criteria, with three of them requiring fuel delivery in 2025.”

**What is HALEU?** In the U.S., High-Assay, Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) is produced in limited quantities by blending down highly enriched uranium (≥20% U-235) with natural or low-enriched uranium. It can also be created through enrichment, a process that separates and concentrates U-235 in gaseous uranium hexafluoride (UF_₆) form. Most advanced reactors under development require HALEU to enable smaller designs, longer fuel cycles, and greater efficiency. However, no commercial domestic supply currently exists—a gap that poses a significant risk to reactor deployment and private investment in HALEU production. Source: DOE

In total, as outlined by the HALEU Allocation Process finalized in September 2024, the DOE intends to make 21 metric tons of HALEU available by June 30, 2026, to support near-term industry needs. Under the FY 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress directed the DOE to make the 21 metric tons of HALEU available on a set schedule: 3 metric tons by Sept. 30, 2024; 8 metric tons by Dec. 31, 2025; and 10 metric tons by June 30, 2026. The DOE will likely draw HALEU from DOE- and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)-managed surplus stockpiles located at several federal sites, including the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, and the Idaho National Laboratory.

For now, the DOE estimates domestic demand for HALEU could reach 50 metric tons per year by 2035, with additional amounts required each year. While commercial-scale supply remains limited, the DOE and its national laboratories are working to recover small amounts of HALEU by down-blending highly enriched uranium from research reactor fuel. So far, two processes are under development: electrochemical processing, which separates uranium from irradiated fuel using molten salt electrolysis at Idaho National Laboratory (targeting up to 10 metric tons of supply), and the Hybrid Zirconium Extraction (ZIRCEX) process, which uses gas-phase dissolution followed by solvent extraction to isolate and down-blend uranium.

In tandem, the DOE is working to establish a full domestic HALEU supply chain from enrichment to deconversion and fabrication. In October 2024, the agency named six companies to provide deconversion services to convert HALEU from UF₆ into oxide or metal forms suitable for use in advanced reactors. Selected firms include Nuclear Fuel Services (BWXT), American Centrifuge Operating (Centrus Energy), Framatome, GE Vernova, Orano, and Westinghouse. Days later, on Oct. 14, DOE awarded contracts totaling up to $8 million to four nuclear fuel companies—Centrus, URENCO, Orano Federal Services, and General Matter—to strengthen domestic HALEU enrichment capabilities. The contracts will allow these firms to bid on future work to produce and store HALEU in UF₆ form.

Separately, the DOE in December 2024 selected six companies to compete for up to $2.7 billion in contracts to supply low-enriched uranium (LEU) and bolster the domestic fuel supply chain. These include: American Centrifuge Operating, General Matter, Global Laser Enrichment, Louisiana Energy Services, Laser Isotope Separation Technologies, and Orano Federal Services. The procurement effort has gathered urgency following the enactment of the U.S. ban on Russian uranium imports in May 2024.

Although the law directly targets LEU, it may have implications for HALEU. According to Centrus, U.S. utilities sourced 24% of their enrichment purchases from Russia in 2023, and 76% from foreign state-owned suppliers overall. Removal of Russian supply, the company warned in a recent investor presentation, could result in a 13 million SWU per year global enrichment shortfall—equivalent to the entire annual enrichment requirement of either the U.S. or Europe. Centrus suggests the disruption, combined with $3.4 billion in newly unlocked federal support, including $700 million specifically for HALEU, could position it to capitalize on a significantly expanding total addressable market spanning national security, global utilities, and advanced reactors. HALEU demand alone, the company projects, could reach $2.2 billion per year by 2030 and $6.2 billion by 2035.

—Sonal Patel is a POWER senior editor (@sonalcpatel, @POWERmagazine).