March 17, 2014

USEC PREPARING FOR POTENTIAL PADUCAH SHUTDOWN AND DECOMMISSIONING

By ExchangeMonitor

Plant operator USEC took another step towards the possible shutdown of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant yesterday, when executives acknowledged in a call with investors that efforts to keep the plant alive may not be enough and expressed interest in doing decommissioning work at the facility. USEC CEO John Welch said that the company is already planning for the possibility that talks with utilities to purchase uranium from the plant could fail, which along with a re-enrichment program for depleted uranium tails could keep the plant running. “Recently there have been discussions about the potential for Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agency within DOE, to purchase a sufficient amount of SWU that could lead to continued operation at Paducah, perhaps for a year. However, these discussions may not be successful and we could decide to cease enrichment at Paducah after our power contract with TVA expires. Therefore we are simultaneously conducting a full review of our options going forward,” Welch said.

USEC has said repeatedly since last year that it will stop operating the plant at the end of May if there isn’t sufficient demand for uranium and the company does not hold a favorable power purchase agreement with the Tennessee Valley Authority. Last week Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu met with Kentucky lawmakers on the future options to keep the plant running. But USEC Vice President for Uranium Enrichment Bob Van Namen noted that “it’s now middle of March and we are on a fairly short time frame to be able to make that decision.” He added, “If we don’t go forward with the operation of the plant, the Department of Energy would be taking back certain facilities under our lease and we would look at doing work for them, if that is what they wanted to do, for preparing the facility for decontamination and decommissioning.” USEC previously performed such pre-D&D work at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio under a “cold shutdown” contract with the Department of Energy prior to full decommissioning activities getting underway there.

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