Antares signs long-term HALEU supply deal with Urenco

Magnus Mori, Head of Advanced Fuels for Urenco, said it was "the world’s first multi-year contract for the supply of HALEU (high-assay low-enriched uranium), which marks an important milestone in the maturation of this new market".

The fuel is to be produced at Urenco's HALEU enrichment facility in the UK, which is scheduled to come online in 2031.

Jordan Bramble, CEO of Antares, said: "This partnership ensures that when we scale beyond material allocated by the federal government, we will have commercial supply ready to meet our needs."

Antares, founded in 2023, says it is on track to conduct a reactor demonstration in 2026 and test its first electricity-producing reactor in 2027, with initial production deployments beginning in 2028. The company is in the final phase of the Department of Energy's Reactor Pilot Program to build a reactor that achieves criticality before 4 July this year. BWX Technologies began fabrication of the TRISO fuel for the company's initial reactors last October.

HALEU - uranium enriched to between 5% and 20% uranium-235 - will be used in the advanced nuclear fuel required for most of the next-generation reactor designs currently under development. In 2024, when only Russia and China had the infrastructure to produce HALEU at scale, the UK Government announced funding of GBP196 million (about USD263 million) to Urenco to support the build of a HALEU fuels facility at its Capenhurst enrichment site in the northwest of England.