Urenco USA Plans 50% Enrichment Capacity Increase as 2028 Russian Ban Looms
America's only commercial enricher is adding 2.1 million SWU at its New Mexico plant, but the 2028 Russian import cutoff leaves limited room for commissioning delays.
Urenco USA disclosed on August 20, 2026 plans to expand uranium enrichment capacity at the National Enrichment Facility in Eunice, New Mexico by nearly 50%, adding 24 new cascades of gas centrifuges and 2.1 million separative work units to existing output in what the company described as a multi-billion-dollar project.6
That announcement framed discussions at the American Nuclear Society's Global 2026 conference as panelists assessed the pace and scale of domestic enrichment buildout against a firm 2028 deadline for ending Russian imports.6,2
The dependency being unwound is substantial. EIA figures for 2023 showed U.S. nuclear generators sourced 99% of their uranium requirements from abroad — principally Canada, Australia, Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Nuclear power accounts for roughly 20% of annual U.S. electricity generation, according to Forbes. President Biden signed H.R.1042, the Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act, in 2024, setting the phaseout clock.1
Urenco USA is the only operator running commercial-scale enrichment in the United States. Its Eunice facility currently produces low-enriched uranium for reactor fuel, and the planned expansion would bring nameplate capacity up by roughly half. No other domestic enricher operates at comparable scale, which means the buildout's timeline carries outsized weight for utilities planning fuel procurement through the late 2020s.2,4
The Trump administration has moved to accelerate buildout. The Department of Energy announced in January 2026 a commitment to invest $2.7 billion in domestic enrichment services over the next decade. Three ventures each received $900 million grants: American Centrifuge Operating, an indirect subsidiary of Centrus Energy Corp., partnered with General Matter for high-assay low-enriched uranium capacity; and Orano Federal Services. Centrus has separately announced facility scale-up plans.1,5
Orano's involvement runs deeper than the grant. The centrifuge technology behind Urenco USA's expansion was developed by Enrichment Technology Company, a joint venture co-owned by Orano and Urenco. The same ETC design has operated at commercial scale at Orano's Georges Besse 2 plant in Tricastin, France, producing at 7.5 million SWU per year since 2016, as powermag.com reported. That operational record reduces some technology risk. But plant construction and regulatory approval timelines in U.S. nuclear have a history of slippage that project announcements rarely acknowledge upfront.3
The URA uranium equity ETF slipped 0.90% to $46.07 as of August 24, 2026, suggesting markets are not pricing the domestic expansion pipeline as a near-term catalyst for uranium producers.
Two years separate August 2026 from the 2028 ban. The multibillion-dollar expansions announced by Urenco and funded through DOE grants are not yet operational. If commissioning at Eunice runs past the ban's effective date, U.S. utilities face a compressed field of non-Russian suppliers competing for the same Canadian, Australian and Central Asian material, with no domestic fallback at commercial scale.1,2
The commissioning date for the new Eunice cascades has not been disclosed publicly. Until it is, the gap between the supply commitments outlined at Global 2026 and the dates when enriched uranium actually enters delivery pipelines remains the central uncertainty for procurement desks at U.S. nuclear operators.6