The Nuclear Fuel Cycle

As of 20 October 2026

Why uranium has to become a gas, and back again, and how few plants can do it

Home • The Front End • Conversion and Deconversion

Abstract

Enrichment gets the headlines. On either side of it sit two quieter chemical steps that set its limits. Conversion turns the concentrate from the mines into uranium hexafluoride, the one uranium compound that can be enriched. Deconversion turns it back into a solid afterwards.

This article follows uranium through both steps and asks whether there is enough capacity. The short answer: conversion for today’s reactors is tight but working, on three Western plants and no fourth in sight. Deconversion for ordinary fuel is routine. For the high-assay fuel that advanced reactors need, the step barely exists, and it is the weakest link in that supply chain.

The Question

Uranium leaves a mine as a solid and goes into a reactor as a solid. In between, for the light-water reactors that make up most of the world’s fleet, it has to spend some time as a gas. Enrichment works on gas, and nothing else will do.

That detour is easy to overlook, but The Nuclear Fuel Cycle: A Complete Primer does not overlook it. Chapter 5 calls conversion the most acute single-point vulnerability in the US nuclear fuel supply [52]. This article asks why, and whether the plants on either side of enrichment can keep up with today’s reactors and the advanced ones coming behind them.

Between Two Solids

The compound that makes enrichment possible is uranium hexafluoride, UF₆. Warm it to about 56.5 degrees Celsius at normal air pressure and it goes straight from solid to vapour, with no liquid in between. As a gas it can be fed to centrifuges, which spin it to separate uranium-235 from the slightly heavier uranium-238.

No other uranium compound does this and stays chemically stable. Fluorine helps in a second way: it has only one natural isotope. So when two UF₆ molecules differ in mass, the difference is all uranium, which is exactly what the centrifuge needs to see.

That one piece of chemistry creates two industries. Conversion turns yellowcake, the uranium oxide concentrate shipped from the mines, into UF₆. Deconversion turns the UF₆ back into a solid once enrichment is done. Every kilogram of uranium that reaches a light-water reactor has been through both.

Two Ways of Counting

Before looking at the plants, one trap is worth knowing about. Conversion is counted in two kinds of tonne. The industry usually counts the tonnes of uranium inside the UF₆. Some companies quote the tonnes of UF₆ itself. Fluorine is heavy, so a tonne of UF₆ holds only about two-thirds of a tonne of uranium, and the same output can show up as two numbers that differ by almost half.

That trap catches the most quoted number in the US market. Solstice Advanced Materials has owned the Metropolis Works conversion plant in Illinois since its October 2025 spin-off from Honeywell. On 10 February 2026 it said the plant would produce “over 10 kilotonnes” of UF₆ in 2026, about 20 percent more than planned for 2024 [1]. Taken at its word, that is about 6,760 tonnes of uranium.

Trade coverage has repeated the figure in both units. Solstice itself has not given a number in tonnes of uranium, so the literal reading is the one used here.

Three Plants for the West

Five operators do nearly all of the world’s conversion. Two of them, in Russia and China, mostly serve their own countries. That leaves three plants for everyone else, and each has its own story. Table 1 sets out what each operator has said about capacity and output.

Metropolis Works, Illinois

Metropolis is the only conversion plant in the United States. It uses a dry process: concentrate is turned into an impure UF₆ and then cleaned up by distillation in two stages [5]. This route depends on fluoride volatility, the readiness of uranium’s fluorides to turn to gas. ConverDyn, a partnership of Solstice and General Atomics, sells everything it makes.

Its history shows how fragile a one-plant country is. Metropolis was built for up to 15,000 tonnes of uranium a year. In 2017, with the world awash in UF₆, Honeywell cut its rating to 7,000 tonnes, and that November it stopped production altogether [3]. For more than five years the United States had no working conversion plant. Metropolis restarted in July 2023 after work to clear bottlenecks [3].

Its NRC license was renewed in 2020 and runs to 2060. The environmental assessment for that renewal records an authorized capacity of 15,000 metric tons, without saying of what [4].

A second plant is being studied, not built. In April 2026 ConverDyn told a fuel-cycle conference that an engineering firm was looking at a possible new plant, “Metropolis 2.0”, with findings due before the end of 2026. No investment decision has been made, and the company says none will be without contracts to support it [2]. Actual 2026 output had not been published as of October.

Blind River and Port Hope, Ontario

Cameco splits the work between two Ontario sites. Blind River refines concentrate to uranium trioxide. Port Hope turns that into UF₆ for light-water reactors, and into uranium dioxide for Canada’s own CANDU reactors, which burn natural uranium and skip enrichment. Both sites use a wet chemical process [6].

Port Hope had a record year and then a rough patch. It is licensed for 12,500 tonnes of uranium a year as UF₆ [6], and in 2025 it made 11,200 tonnes, a record for the plant [7]. In the first half of 2026, Cameco’s fuel-services output, which lumps together UF₆, uranium dioxide and fuel bundles, fell 11 percent because of unplanned interruptions [9].

Its operating license runs out on 28 February 2027. Cameco has asked for a twenty-year renewal with no change to what the plant may do. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission holds the hearing on 3–5 November 2026 [8].

Malvési and Philippe Coste, France

Orano works in two places. Malvési, near Narbonne, turns concentrate into uranium tetrafluoride, and the Philippe Coste plant at Tricastin turns that into UF₆. Philippe Coste replaced the older Comurhex I plants, and its main equipment was commissioned in December 2018 [10].

It took years to get up to speed. It made 2,640 tonnes of UF₆ in 2020 [11] and more than 12,000 tonnes in 2025 [12]. Orano now gives its nominal capacity as about 14,000 metric tons, again without saying whether that means uranium or compound [12].

Outside the West

Rosatom converts at Seversk in Siberia; its Angarsk plant shut in 2014. In January 2026 Seversk commissioned more fluorine-production equipment as part of a program to raise capacity, with no published target [13]. China’s CNNC converts at Lanzhou and Hengyang, mainly for its own reactors [14].

Britain used to be on this list. Its Springfields site stopped converting uranium around 2014. In December 2022 the government put up to £13 million into design work toward new conversion there “from 2028” [15]. Nothing further has been announced.

TABLE 1. World conversion capacity, as reported.

Plant	Operator	Capacity as stated	Latest output (reported or estimated)
Metropolis Works, US	Solstice (ConverDyn markets)	7,000 tonnes of uranium (2017 rating) [3]; 15,000 metric tons authorized [4]	Projected over 10,000 tonnes of UF₆ in 2026, about 6,760 tonnes of uranium [1]
Port Hope, Canada	Cameco	12,500 tonnes of uranium as UF₆ (license) [6]	11,200 tonnes of uranium as UF₆ (2025) [7]
Philippe Coste, France	Orano	15,000 tonnes a year at commissioning [10]; about 14,000 tonnes now (unit unstated) [12]	Over 12,000 tonnes of UF₆ (2025) [12]
Seversk, Russia	Rosatom	About 12,500 tonnes of uranium (estimate) [5]	About 11,400 tonnes of uranium (2024, WNA modeled estimate) [5]
Lanzhou and Hengyang, China	CNNC	About 15,000 tonnes of uranium (estimate) [5]	About 13,500 tonnes of uranium (2024, WNA modeled estimate) [5]

Russian and Chinese values are World Nuclear Association estimates [5]. Western values are from the operators and regulators cited. The figures are not all in the same unit, so the columns should not be added up.

The World Nuclear Association puts world licensed capacity at about 62,000 tonnes of uranium a year [5]. On its estimates, Russia and China hold a little under half of that [5]. The West’s share rests on Metropolis, Port Hope and Philippe Coste.

Is It Enough?

How much conversion the United States needs depends on how you count. US reactor owners bought about 18,000 tonnes of uranium in 2025, and sent about 12,300 tonnes to enrichment plants as feed [16]. The Energy Information Administration does not publish a conversion figure as such. Table 2 gives the detail.

Measured either way, Metropolis covers a good share but not all of it. Its 2026 projection, read literally, equals about 37 percent of US purchases, or about 55 percent of the feed sent to enrichers [1] [16]. The rest comes from Canada and Europe, and, until recently, from Russia.

TABLE 2. US uranium demand in 2025 and the Metropolis projection.

Measure	Figure
Uranium bought by US owners and operators, 2025	About 18,040 tonnes of uranium (46.9 million pounds of U₃O₈ equivalent) [16]
Natural uranium delivered to enrichment plants, 2025	About 12,310 tonnes of uranium (32 million pounds of U₃O₈ equivalent) [16]
Share of that feed sent to US / foreign enrichers	37 percent / 63 percent [16]
Metropolis projection, 2026	Over 10,000 tonnes of UF₆, about 6,760 tonnes of uranium [1]
Metropolis as a share of purchases / of feed	About 37 percent / about 55 percent (arithmetic)

Europe is tight too. Utilities in the European Union received 13,248 tonnes of uranium in conversion services in 2025. Four suppliers split it almost evenly: Orano, Rosatom, ConverDyn and Cameco each provided between a fifth and a quarter [17]. One of the four is Russian.

Contracts cover most of Europe’s needs for now, but the cover thins out. The Euratom Supply Agency reports that contracted conversion meets about 90 percent of requirements through 2030, falling to about 60 percent by 2033. It warns of limited spare capacity and long lead times [17].

The market has noticed. Conversion is priced in US dollars per kilogram of uranium converted to UF₆, the unit in which the service is bought and sold. Cameco’s average of the two main long-term price indicators rose by about a quarter between 2024 and 2025 [7]. Table 3 gives the figures.

TABLE 3. European supply and the conversion price.

Measure	Figure
Conversion received by EU utilities, 2025	13,248 tonnes of uranium [17]
Supplier shares, 2025	Orano 24.85%, Rosatom 24.40%, ConverDyn 21.32%, Cameco 21.07%, remainder unspecified [17]
Contracted coverage of EU requirements	About 90% through 2030, about 60% by 2033 [17]
Long-term conversion price indicator, annual average	2024: $40.57; 2025: $51.41 per kilogram of uranium as UF₆ [7]
Long-term conversion price indicator, end of 2025	$53.63 per kilogram of uranium as UF₆ [7]

One thing is often assumed and is not quite right. The Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act of May 2024 bars imports of “unirradiated low-enriched uranium” made in Russia or by a Russian entity. Waivers are capped year by year and end no later than 1 January 2028, and the ban runs to the end of 2040. But the Act does not define low-enriched uranium, and it says nothing about natural uranium, UF₆ or conversion services [18].

The Plants on Paper

New Western capacity exists so far only on paper. No new conversion plant is operating, licensed or under construction anywhere in the West. Four US projects are at earlier stages, listed in Table 4 in the units their own filings use.

TABLE 4. Proposed US conversion plants.

Project	Planned size	Status
United States Uranium Refining & Conversion Corp. (Uranium Energy Corp subsidiary, formed September 2025)	About 10,000 tonnes of uranium a year [19]	NRC docket number assigned 18 March 2026 [20]; pre-application meeting 12 May 2026 [21]; detailed cost estimate due by mid-2027; no site chosen [19] [20]
FluxPoint Energy (launched March 2026)	First train of about 2,500 tonnes of uranium a year, dry process [22]	Land secured in Texas; front-end engineering begun; first production targeted for 2030–2031 [22]
Raven-Flint	Pilot plant “Torch”, 500 tonnes of uranium a year, at Idaho National Laboratory [23]	Selected for the DOE Launch Pad program on 31 August 2026 [23]; NRC application for laboratory and engineering-scale work under review, request for more information issued August 2026 [24]
Nucleon Fuel	Up to 15,000 tonnes of uranium a year in three trains of 5,000 [45]	Closed pre-application meeting with the NRC on 5 May 2026 [25]

One of them is trying something different. Raven-Flint reports making UF₆ at laboratory scale without elemental fluorine [23], the hazardous gas today’s plants depend on.

None of them will help soon. Chapter 5 of the primer notes that licensing a conversion plant has historically taken five to ten years [52]. On those timelines, the first new US capacity arrives around the end of the decade at the earliest.

The Way Back to a Solid

Enriched uranium leaves the enrichment plant as UF₆, packed in steel cylinders. Reactor fuel is a ceramic, a metal or a coated particle. Deconversion closes that gap, and how well it works depends on which fuel you are making.

Ordinary Fuel, and a Little Richer

For ordinary fuel, deconversion is routine and almost invisible. At US light-water fuel plants it is built into fabrication; Chapter 7 of the primer calls it reconversion [53]. UF₆ is reacted with steam and reduced with hydrogen to uranium dioxide powder, which is pressed and baked into pellets.

Each fuel plant is licensed up to a maximum enrichment, which has long been 5 percent. That ceiling is now rising for LEU+, fuel enriched to between 5 and 10 percent, which lets reactors run longer between refuellings.

Two US plants have approval. Global Nuclear Fuel’s plant at Wilmington, North Carolina, was licensed in February 2024 to make fuel up to 8 percent [26]. Framatome applied in January 2025 to take its Richland, Washington, plant to just under 6.5 percent [27]; approval was announced in May 2026, with manufacturing from 2027 [28]. The third US maker is building rather than waiting. On 21 October 2026 Westinghouse announced an investment of about $1 billion in a new LEU+ factory at its Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility in Hopkins, South Carolina, near Columbia, for fuel enriched to 5 to 8 percent. Construction is under way, with operation planned for 2030 [49]. No NRC approval for it had been announced; the plant was last reported at the pre-application stage [48].

Shipping the material is its own hurdle. The standard cylinder for enriched UF₆ is certified only to 5 percent. Anything richer needs the DN30-X package, which the NRC certified in 2023 in two versions, for up to 10 and up to 20 percent [29].

HALEU: the Missing Middle

High-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) is uranium enriched above 5 percent and below 20 percent. Most advanced reactor designs need it. Like ordinary enriched uranium, it comes out of the enricher as UF₆. Centrus Energy’s demonstration plant at Piketon, Ohio, had made more than 1,900 kilograms of it by June 2026, all as UF₆ [30].

To become fuel, it has to be turned into oxide for TRISO particles, tiny kernels sealed in ceramic coatings, or into metal for fast reactors. Toward the top of its range it also needs tighter security: the NRC’s Category II rules, the middle of its three security tiers, apply once a site holds 10 kilograms or more of uranium-235 in uranium enriched to at least 10 percent but less than 20 [31].

This is where the chain breaks. The step that turns HALEU UF₆ into oxide or metal exists only in pieces. In October 2024 the Department of Energy put six companies on a HALEU deconversion contract worth up to $800 million in total [32] [33]. Its page lists no orders placed under it [32].

The pieces that do exist sit on either side of the gap. The TRISO-X plant at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, received the first new NRC license for a Category II fuel fabrication facility in February 2026, but its license takes HALEU as uranium oxide or uranyl nitrate, not as UF₆ [34]. Framatome and TerraPower finished a line at Richland that turns uranium into metal and made metal from depleted uranium in November 2025. No HALEU had been through it [35].

Idaho National Laboratory has a small supply that skips the problem. It is recovering just under ten tonnes of HALEU from the spent fuel of its old EBR-II reactor, material that is already metal, with treatment due to finish by the end of 2028 [36]. The weapons complex has a little too. The Y-12 plant at Oak Ridge processes stored government uranium into HALEU; in late 2025 it shipped HALEU oxide to the fuel maker Standard Nuclear to be made into TRISO fuel for testing at Idaho, though Y-12 says it does not produce for commercial power [50]. Beyond these government stocks, no source examined for this article shows an operating or licensed commercial-scale line that turns HALEU UF₆ into oxide or metal. One end of the chain makes gas; the other end wants solids; nothing commercial sits in between.

HALEU also leans harder on conversion. The Department of Energy’s 2024 environmental impact statement on HALEU gives about 9.9 tonnes of natural uranium for each tonne of 5 percent fuel [37].

That figure is for ordinary enrichment. HALEU is made in two passes. The same statement gives about two tonnes of 10 percent material for each tonne of HALEU [37], and each tonne of that intermediate takes about 20 tonnes of natural uranium, at the tails assay the statement’s figures imply.

So each tonne of HALEU draws roughly 40 tonnes of natural uranium, about four times as much per kilogram as ordinary fuel, and every one of those kilograms goes through a conversion plant first. An advanced-reactor build-out leans on the same three Western conversion plants, only harder.

What Is Left Over

Enrichment leaves behind more uranium than it makes. For every tonne of enriched product, several tonnes of depleted uranium remain. In the United States most of it belongs to the Department of Energy, left over from the old government enrichment plants at Paducah, Kentucky, and Portsmouth, Ohio.

There is a lot of it. The department’s current conversion project covers about 800,000 tonnes of depleted UF₆ [39], in about 67,000 cylinders [40]. As uranium, that is about 540,000 tonnes.

Two plants were built to deal with it, one at each site, and began operating in 2010 and 2011. They turn it into uranium oxide for storage or disposal and recover hydrofluoric acid, which is sold. Together they were designed to handle 31,500 tonnes of the compound a year [40].

They have never come close. The best year was about 22,600 tonnes, in 2014 [40]. By February 2021 about 71,000 tonnes had been converted, leaving about 729,000 [40]. Table 5 gives the figures.

So the finish line keeps moving. The department’s 2019 baseline put completion in 2054. Its Inspector General estimated that at 2019 rates the work could run to 2074 [40]. The department’s strategic plan schedules Paducah’s share for 2057 [42].

The work goes on. In October 2026 the department reported that Portsmouth had converted the contents of 4,500 old cylinders, more than a fifth of that site’s stock [41].

TABLE 5. The US depleted UF₆ inventory and its conversion.

Measure	Figure
Inventory recorded in 1999	“Nearly 700,000 metric tons of depleted uranium hexafluoride” [38]
Current conversion project scope	About 800,000 tonnes of depleted UF₆ [39], about 540,000 tonnes of uranium (arithmetic)
Cylinders	About 67,000 [40]
Combined design throughput of the two plants	31,500 tonnes of depleted UF₆ a year [40]
Actual throughput	About 22,600 tonnes in 2014 (best year); about 14,000 tonnes in 2019 [40]
Converted by February 2021 / remaining	About 71,000 tonnes / about 729,000 tonnes [40]
Completion	2054 (2019 baseline) [40]; 2057 for Paducah (strategic plan) [42]; 2074 at 2019 rates (Inspector General estimate) [40]

Those cylinders are also starting to look like a resource. In 2016 the department agreed to sell about 300,000 tonnes of its richer depleted UF₆ to Global Laser Enrichment, to be re-enriched over roughly forty years [43]. The NRC published a draft environmental impact statement for that company’s proposed Paducah plant in March 2026 [44]. General Matter has leased part of the Paducah site, with at least 7,600 cylinders of existing material, and has applied to enrich there [45].

One old American plan may come back. International Isotopes was licensed to build a plant in Lea County, New Mexico, to deconvert depleted UF₆ and recover its fluorine, but never built it. In October 2026 the company, now Radnostix, and NANO Nuclear asked the NRC to consent to transferring that license, SUB-1011, to a NANO subsidiary, a closing condition of their sale of the project [51].

Depleted uranium can also serve as fertile material, in the blanket or fuel matrix of the fast reactors described in Chapter 15 of the primer and as the uranium in MOX fuel [54]. That use is limited and prospective, and there is no significant demand for it today. The oxide coming out of Paducah and Portsmouth is a disposal problem today and, at most, a possible fuel stock later.

Other countries treat their tails as routine. Orano’s plant at Tricastin converts tails from its enrichment plant to oxide, with a capacity extension scheduled for 2028 [12]. Urenco’s Tails Management Facility at Capenhurst in England opened in 2019 [47].

Rosatom and Urenco are adding more. Rosatom’s plant at Zelenogorsk had processed 165,000 tonnes of depleted UF₆ by the end of 2025, and a second unit commissioned in September 2026 doubles its capacity to 20,000 tonnes a year [13]. In October 2026 Urenco commissioned a store at Gronau, Germany, for up to 59,000 tonnes of uranium oxide from its tails [46].

TABLE 6. The three deconversion streams, October 2026.

Stream	Product	Where it happens	Status
Ordinary enriched uranium (to 5%)	Uranium dioxide powder	Inside each light-water fuel plant	Operating routinely
LEU+ (5–10%)	Uranium dioxide powder	Wilmington (to 8%) [26]; Richland (below 6.5%) [28]	Licensed at two US plants; Westinghouse factory at Hopkins, SC, under construction, operation planned 2030 [49]
HALEU (above 5% and below 20%)	Oxide or metal	No commercial line	Federal contract with no orders [32]; demonstrations only [35] [36]
Depleted uranium	Uranium oxide	Paducah and Portsmouth; Tricastin; Capenhurst; Zelenogorsk	Operating; US inventory scheduled into the 2050s or later [40] [42]

What This Means

For today’s reactors, the picture is tight but working. Western conversion rests on three plants, Metropolis, Port Hope and Philippe Coste, and the United States has already gone more than five years with its only plant shut. No fourth plant is licensed or under construction, and the first new US capacity would come around the end of the decade at the earliest. Deconversion for ordinary fuel is routine and is moving above 5 percent [26] [28].

For advanced reactors, the weak point is in the middle. HALEU has a demonstration enrichment plant at one end and a licensed fabrication plant at the other, with no commercial deconversion step between them [30] [34]. And each tonne of it needs about four times the conversion of ordinary fuel, from the same small set of plants.

A few dated events will show which way this goes: a published figure for Metropolis’s actual 2026 output in tonnes of uranium; the Metropolis 2.0 study, due by the end of 2026 [2]; the Port Hope license hearing in November [8]; and a first order under the federal HALEU deconversion contract, or an application for a commercial HALEU deconversion line [32]. Chapters 5 and 7 of the primer give the background on both steps [52] [53].

Spot an error? Suggest a correction

Notes

1. Solstice Advanced Materials, “Solstice Advanced Materials Announces Expansion of Uranium Conversion Production to Support Strong Nuclear Industry Customer Demand,” 10 February 2026. https://www.solstice.com/us/en/resources/press-releases/2026/02/solstice-advanced-materials-announces-expansion-of-uranium-conversion-production-to-support-strong-nuclear-industry-customer-demand

2. World Nuclear News, “ConverDyn considering building Metropolis 2.0 plant, conference told,” 17 April 2026. https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/converdyn-considering-building-metropolis-20-plant-conference-told

3. World Nuclear News, “Solstice plans expansion of US conversion facility,” February 2026. https://world-nuclear-news.org/articles/solstice-plans-expansion-of-us-conversion-facility

4. US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Honeywell Metropolis Works licence renewal, environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact, Federal Register, 16 October 2019. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2019-10-16/html/2019-22550.htm

5. World Nuclear Association, “Conversion and Deconversion,” updated 14 October 2026. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/conversion-enrichment-and-fabrication/conversion-and-deconversion

6. Cameco, Port Hope Conversion Facility relicensing, CMD 16-H8.1, 2 September 2016. https://www.camecofuel.com/sites/default/files/documents/PHCF-relicensing-CMD.pdf

7. Cameco, 2025 Management’s Discussion and Analysis, Form 40-F Exhibit 99.3, 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1009001/000119312526116229/d34605dex993.htm

8. Cameco, Port Hope Conversion Facility Licence Renewal Briefing Guide, 2026. https://www.camecofuel.com/sites/default/files/documents/PHCF-2027-Licence-Renewal.pdf

9. Cameco, “Cameco Reports 2026 Second Quarter Results,” July 2026. https://www.cameco.com/media/news/cameco-reports-2026-second-quarter-results

10. World Nuclear News, “Orano commissions new conversion facility,” 21 December 2018. https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Orano-commissions-new-conversion-facility

11. World Nuclear News, “Q&A: Orano Conversion & Enrichment CEO Jacques Peythieu,” 31 August 2021. https://wnn.world-nuclear.org/articles/q-a-orano-conversion-enrichment-ceo-jacques-peythi

12. Orano, Annual Activity Report 2025, 2026. https://www.orano.group/finance-raa/2025/en/26/

13. World Nuclear Association, “Russia’s Nuclear Fuel Cycle,” updated 30 September 2026. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-o-s/russia-nuclear-fuel-cycle

14. World Nuclear Association, “China’s Nuclear Fuel Cycle,” updated 25 April 2024. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/china-nuclear-fuel-cycle

15. World Nuclear News, “Westinghouse targets new UK-based uranium conversion capabilities,” 15 December 2022. https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Westinghouse-targets-new-UK-based-uranium-conversi

16. US Energy Information Administration, Uranium Marketing Annual Report (2025 data), released 29 July 2026. https://www.eia.gov/uranium/marketing/index.php

17. Euratom Supply Agency, Annual Report 2025, 2026. https://euratom-supply.ec.europa.eu/document/download/f5fd9141-e7ae-4074-8c83-9a57f55446a7_en?filename=ESA_Annual_Report_2025.pdf

18. Public Law 118-62, Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act, 13 May 2024. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-118publ62/html/PLAW-118publ62.htm

19. Uranium Energy Corp, Form 8-K, 2 September 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1334933/000143774925028163/uec20250902_8k.htm

20. Uranium Energy Corp, Form 8-K exhibit (NRC docket for UR&C), 23 March 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1334933/000143774926009421/ex_936045.htm

21. US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, meeting notice, UR&C pre-application meeting, 12 May 2026 (ML26112A108). https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2611/ML26112A108.pdf

22. POWER, “FluxPoint Energy Enters Race to Build First New U.S. Uranium Conversion Plant in Nearly 70 Years,” 26 March 2026. https://www.powermag.com/fluxpoint-energy-enters-race-to-build-first-new-u-s-uranium-conversion-plant-in-nearly-70-years/

23. Raven-Flint, “Raven-Flint Selected by DOE to Build America’s Second Uranium Conversion Plant,” 31 August 2026. https://www.raven-flint.com/press/2026-08-31-doe-launch-pad-selection/

24. American Nuclear Society, “Raven-Flint U conversion plans land on NRC docket, in Launch Pad,” 4 September 2026. https://www.ans.org/news/article-8367/ravenflint-u-conversion-plans-land-on-nrc-docket-in-launch-pad/

25. US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, meeting notice, Nucleon Fuel pre-application meeting, 5 May 2026 (ML26132A137). https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2613/ML26132A137.pdf

26. World Nuclear News, “GNF gets approval to manufacture higher enrichment fuel,” 15 February 2024. https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/GNF-gets-approval-to-manufacture-higher-enrichment

27. US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, “Framatome Fuel Fabrication Facility; License Amendment Application,” Federal Register, 15 July 2025. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-07-15/html/2025-13169.htm

28. American Nuclear Society, “Framatome licensed to produce LEU+ fuel at its Richland plant,” 8 May 2026. https://www.ans.org/news/2026-05-08/article-8017/framatome-licensed-to-produce-leu-fuel-at-its-richland-plant/

29. US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Safety Evaluation Report for the Model DN30-X package, Docket 71-9388 (ML23083B980), 2023. https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2308/ML23083B980.pdf

30. Centrus Energy, Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1, 1 July 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001065059/000162828026046801/ex991_haleu900mpr.htm

31. US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, “Security and safeguards” (new fuels), reviewed 14 September 2026. https://www.nrc.gov/materials/new-fuels/security-safeguards.html

32. US Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy, “HALEU Deconversion Services,” modified 23 June 2026. https://www.energy.gov/ne/haleu-deconversion-services

33. American Nuclear Society, “The DOE picks six HALEU deconverters. What have we learned?,” 9 October 2024. https://ans.org/news/article-6465/the-doe-picks-six-haleu-deconverters-what-have-we-learned

34. POWER, “TRISO-X secures first-ever NRC Category II license for commercial advanced nuclear fuel fabrication,” February 2026. https://www.powermag.com/triso-x-secures-first-ever-nrc-category-ii-license-for-commercial-advanced-nuclear-fuel-fabrication/

35. TerraPower, “Framatome and TerraPower achieve breakthrough in uranium metallization for advanced reactor fuel commercialization,” 4 November 2025. https://www.terrapower.com/framatome-and-terrapower-achieve-breakthrough-in-uranium-metallization-for-advanced-reactor-fuel-commercialization

36. American Nuclear Society, “Leading the charge: INL’s role in advancing HALEU production,” 23 October 2025. https://www.ans.org/news/2025-10-23/article-7387/leading-the-charge-inls-role-in-advancing-haleu-production/

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