Executives from Urenco USA, Centrus Energy, General Matter and Global Laser Enrichment described their plans to expand front end nuclear fuel capacity in the United States during a plenary session at the American Nuclear Society's Global 2026 meeting.
Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright attended a groundbreaking this week in Eunice, New Mexico, at the site where Urenco USA will expand its commercial uranium enrichment facility. The project installs 2.1 million separative work units of new gas centrifuge capacity and raises the site's low enriched uranium output by nearly 50 percent. Mary Neumayr, head of government affairs at Urenco, said the expansion will grow the facility beyond 7 million separative work units by 2036, against a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license limit of 10 million.
Centrus framed the effort against a long decline. The United States held 64 percent of global uranium enrichment in 1985 and less than 1 percent by 2024, while Russia's share climbed to 43 percent.
"The United States has really fallen dramatically behind the rest of the world, and it is most highly concentrated in uranium enrichment," said Dan Leistikow, vice president for corporate communications at Centrus Energy. The company reached a $900 million agreement with the Department of Energy this summer to expand production capacity for high assay low enriched uranium at its American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio.
General Matter leased 100 acres of federal land at the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky from the DOE Office of Environmental Management for a private enrichment facility.
Source: American Nuclear Society - https://www.ans.org/news/2026-08-21/article-8323/panelists-talk-domestic-enrichment-expansion-at-global-2026/