A multi-billion-dollar expansion is coming to Urenco USA’s National Enrichment Facility in Eunice, N.M., enlarging the capacity by nearly 50%, the company said Tuesday.
Urenco USA, an affiliate of the European Urenco Group, said in a press release it will install 2.1 million separative work units (SWU) of new enrichment capacity of low-enriched uranium at its new plant at the facility. During the expansion, up to 24 cascades of centrifuges will be installed, with the initial cascades starting production in 2032 and additional cascades installed through 2036.
An exact value of the expansion was not provided in the release.
The new plant that will be constructed at the National Enrichment Facility is expected to bring 300 to 600 new jobs during the peak construction period and 70 jobs in the long-term, Urenco USA said.
“This is the most transformative expansion decision for Urenco in the past decade, and our New Mexico employees are ready to fuel the continued growth of the U.S. nuclear power industry by bringing this additional capacity online,” John Kirkpatrick, managing director of Urenco USA, said in the release. “We are already preparing for the expansion and are excited to continue the work done onsite in recent years to add new capacity to our existing plant.”
Urenco USA’s National Enrichment Facility has already been undergoing expansion within its existing building. In April, the company hit the halfway mark in its domestic enrichment capacity expansion program after installing the fourth new cascade of gas centrifuges.
That expansion program plans to add 700,000 SWU of new capacity at the enrichment facility from 2025 to 2027. The company also plans to refurbish existing capacity at the site in 2027 as a part of ongoing long-term capital improvement plans.
The enrichment facility currently has an annual capacity of 4.3 million SWU, which is nearly one-third of current U.S. demand, Urenco USA said. The company first announced plans for the New Mexico capacity expansion in 2023.