Beginning in May, the Energy Department will cut the amount of excess government uranium it will barter to help pay for Cold War cleanup at the Portsmouth site in Ohio, the agency said last week.

Even so, there will be no layoffs at the facility near Piketon for at least the rest of fiscal 2017, DOE said in a press release. Energy Secretary Rick Perry authorized the department to cut the yearly barter to 1,200 metric tons from the current 1,600 metric tons beginning May 1, according to the release.

Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth, DOE’s prime cleanup contractor at the site, favored keeping the barter rate at 1,600 metric tons per ton. The nuclear-energy industry has favored ending the barter arrangement. DOE must by law review the affect of barter on commodities markets every two years.

DOE barters uranium to Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth to help pay for cleanup of the uranium enrichment facility built in the 1950s. The annualized budget for Portsmouth cleanup for 2017 is roughly $765 million: about 10 percent more than the Barack Obama administration requested for the site in its 2017 budget request.

In 2016, sales of bartered uranium on the open market paid for roughly 30 percent of Portsmouth’s cleanup costs. Congressional appropriations accounted for the remainder. There are roughly 2,000 people working on the Portsmouth cleanup, according to the contractor.

Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth’s 10-year decontamination and decommissioning contract could be worth $3.5 billion, including options. The pact would expire in 2021, if DOE picks up its last option. The company has assumed uranium barter would help defray remediation costs at Portsmouth through this final option period.