| Type | limited |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Marlow, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom |
| Products | nuclear fuel |
| Services | uranium enrichment |
| Website | www.urenco.com |
The URENCO Group is a nuclear fuel company operating several uranium enrichment plants in Germany, Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It supplies nuclear power stations in about 15 countries, and has a 25% share of the global market for enrichment services.[1] Urenco uses Zippe-type centrifuge enrichment technology.
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URENCO Deutschland GmbH, URENCO UK Ltd and URENCO Nederland BV are 100% subsidiaries of URENCO Enrichment Company Ltd. They operate enrichment plants at Gronau, Westphalia, Germany, at Capenhurst, Cheshire, United Kingdom and at Almelo, Overijssel, the Netherlands.
In the United States, where URENCO is represented by its marketing subsidiary URENCO, Inc., the URENCO USA facility became operational in spring 2010. This National Enrichment Facility is located 5 miles (8.0 km) east of Eunice, New Mexico, and operated by Louisiana Energy Services (LES), a subsidiary of URENCO.
URENCO also owns a 50% interest in Enrichment Technology Company (ETC), a company jointly owned with Areva. ETC provides enrichment-plant design services and gas-centrifuge technology for enrichment plants through its subsidiaries in the UK (Capenhurst), Germany (Gronau and Jülich), the Netherlands (Almelo), France (Tricastin) and the U.S. (Eunice, New Mexico).
URENCO is owned in three equal parts by Ultra-Centrifuge Nederland NV (owned by the Government of the Netherlands), Uranit GmbH (owned equally by German energy companies E.ON and RWE) and Enrichment Holdings Ltd (owned by the Government of the United Kingdom and managed by the Shareholder Executive).[2]
URENCO Netherlands BV has dismantled enrichment plant SP3, after the decommissioning of SP1 and SP2 in the 1980s and 1990s. Information about decommissioning cost calculations for URENCO facilities is not accessible.[3]
In May 1985, the United Nations Council for Namibia (UNCN) decided to take legal action against URENCO for breaching UNCN Decree No 1, which prohibited any exploitation of Namibia's natural resources under apartheid South Africa, because URENCO had been importing uranium ore from the Rössing mine in Namibia. The case was expected to be ready by the end of 1985 but was delayed because URENCO argued that, despite having enriched uranium of Namibian origin since 1980, it was impossible to tell where specific consignments came from. When the case finally reached court in July 1986, the Dutch government took URENCO's line, claiming not to have known where the uranium had been mined.[4]
According to Greenpeace, URENCO has a standing contract with Russia for the disposal of radioactive waste. In March 2009, there were protests about the largest-ever load of URENCO waste being transported from Germany to the Siberian town Seversk for reprocessing.[5]