Urenco USA Marks First Commercial LEU+ Production

Urenco USA has produced its first cylinder of LEU+ — uranium enriched to between 5% and 10% U-235 — at its National Enrichment Facility in New Mexico, a milestone the company says marks the first commercial production of the material in the Western world. The announcement, made November 3, follows a September 2025 authorization from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission allowing Urenco USA to enrich uranium up to 10% U-235 at the site.

What makes LEU+ different

Civilian reactor fuel has historically been capped at just under 5% U-235, the enrichment level standard light-water reactors are designed around. LEU+ pushes that ceiling to 10%, enabling fuel designs that can run for longer stretches between refuelling outages, which Urenco USA says can reduce both the frequency of outages and the operations and maintenance costs tied to them for existing reactors. Urenco USA said all of its gas centrifuge cascades at the New Mexico site are now licensed to produce the material, meaning the plant is not relying on a single dedicated production line.

The step up in enrichment also matters beyond today’s reactor fleet. Some advanced reactor designs under development are built to run directly on LEU+, while others are designed for HALEU — uranium enriched between 10% and 20% U-235. Urenco USA said LEU+ can also serve as a feedstock for producing HALEU, giving the New Mexico plant a role in the broader supply chain for next-generation fuels even before it produces HALEU itself.

A capacity build-out already under way

The LEU+ milestone lands alongside a wider expansion of Urenco USA’s enrichment capacity. The company is installing 700,000 separative work units (SWU) of new centrifuge capacity at the existing New Mexico site, part of a stated goal of reaching more than 7 million SWU of US enrichment capacity over the next decade. A separate, larger plant with 2.1 million SWU of capacity is planned nearby, with construction due to start in 2029, first cascades expected by 2032, and additional capacity phased in through 2036; that new plant is also designed to be able to produce LEU+.

Jody Blackshear, Urenco USA’s managing director, said the milestone means the company can “now supply an innovative fuel option for our customers” that supports “the next generation of nuclear fuel technologies.” The company did not name specific customers for the first LEU+ cylinder.

Part of a broader US enrichment push

Urenco USA’s milestone is the latest sign of the US trying to rebuild domestic uranium enrichment capacity after decades of relying heavily on foreign suppliers, including Russia’s Rosatom, for enriched fuel. Centrus Energy shipped its first domestically built centrifuge to its Ohio enrichment plant in late October as part of its own capacity expansion, while General Matter filed the first NRC license application for a new enrichment plant at the former Paducah site in September. On the fuel-fabrication side, advanced reactor developers such as Antares Nuclear have been lining up TRISO fuel supply deals with BWXT ahead of planned 2027 reactor start-ups — a reminder that enrichment capacity is only one link in a fuel-supply chain that also needs conversion, fabrication and licensed transport to keep pace with demand from both existing reactors and the advanced designs now moving toward construction.

Sources

• World Nuclear News, “Urenco USA marks first commercial LEU+ production,” November 3, 2026 — milestone details, NRC authorization history and capacity figures.
• Urenco USA, statement by Managing Director Jody Blackshear, November 3, 2026 — company quote on the significance of the milestone.
• US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, authorization of LEU+ production at Urenco USA’s National Enrichment Facility, September 2025 — regulatory background.

Illustrative image. Photo: Nuclear Regulatory Commission from US, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — source