Urenco USA celebrated in Eunice, N.M., on Aug. 18, 2026, the future expansion of the country's only commercial uranium enrichment facility with a groundbreaking ceremony attended by U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Urenco CEO Boris Schucht and other company leadership.
In June, the company announced that it will expand the capacity of the facility by nearly 50 percent, marking a major commitment to strengthening the U.S. nuclear fuel supply chain as the country increases the use of nuclear power.
This strategic, multi-billion-dollar investment will fund the construction of a new enrichment plant at Urenco USA's National Enrichment Facility in Eunice, New Mexico, enabling the enhanced production of low enriched uranium (LEU) vital to the nation's energy security.
A contractor wasn't named.
In his remarks following the groundbreaking, Urenco's CEO Boris Schucht said:
“We're making this substantial commitment to expand our U.S. facility to serve our U.S. customers' needs. But this expansion also supports the U.S. Department of Energy's goals to accelerate the deployment of new domestic capacity, strengthen the U.S. nuclear fuel supply chain, and reinvigorate the nuclear industrial base.
“It is a commercial, world-class facility developed without any public funding. Our investment will now increase to substantially more than $8 billion at the site. We are delighted to retain our customers' trust, which has made this expansion possible.”
During the expansion, Urenco will install 2.1 million separative work units (SWU) of new enrichment capacity using the company's proven gas-centrifuge enrichment technology in 24 cascades of centrifuges, with the initial cascades starting production in 2032 and additional cascades installed through 2036.
The expansion will support between 300-600 U.S. jobs during the peak construction period and 70 jobs in long-term operations at the site. Urenco USA currently employs more than 500 U.S. staff and long-term contractors at the facility, which has been in commercial operation since 2010.
Urenco USA operates the National Enrichment Facility, a strategic part of America's energy infrastructure and nuclear fuel supply chain that began operations in 2010 and has the capacity to meet approximately one-third of the enrichment needs of U.S. commercial nuclear power plants. The facility has an existing annual capacity of 4.3 million SWU and has an ongoing expansion project to add 700,000 SWU of capacity that will be completed in 2027.
