ConverDyn Files Motion for Summary Judgment in Uranium Transfer Case

Uranium conversion services company ConverDyn late last week filed a motion for summary judgment in a case that aims to prevent the Department of Energy from moving ahead with its transfers of excess uranium. ConverDyn is asking the U.S. District Court for D.C. to  vacate the May 15, 2014 DOE Secretarial determination on the sale and transfer uranium and set aside DOE uranium transfers that include conversion services or do not go for a fair market value or exceed 10 percent of the annual domestic nuclear fuel requirement. It would also vacate DOE’s 2013 Excess Uranium Inventory Management Plan.

 

DOE has said that if the transfers were halted there would be a big impact on cleanup work at Portsmouth and certain nonproliferation programs, which are funded in part by portions of DOE’s excess uranium stockpile. However, earlier this year ConverDyn filed a lawsuit claiming that its business will suffer “irreparable harm” if transfers go forward. “The USEC Privatization Act (the “Act”) bars DOE from selling or transferring uranium if the sales or transfers would materially harm the domestic uranium mining, conversion, or enrichment industries,” states last week’s motion. “Yet, contrary to the Act, DOE has authorized and is making uranium transfers that are damaging the already-fragile domestic conversion market by displacing sales, depressing prices, increasing costs, and eliminating jobs.”