Russian specialist nuclear fuel exporter Techsnab-export – better known by its brand name of Tenex – has, in just over a week, won contracts to directly supply low-enriched uranium to four US nuclear power utilities. The latest contract, signed last week, is with the Exelon Corporation, which is one of the largest electricity producers in the US, with a production capacity of 25 000 MW (of which, 17 000 MW comes from nuclear plants) plus control of another 6 500 MW through long-term contracts.
During the last week of May, the Russian company signed a contract with FuelCo, which represents the interests of three US utilities, PG&E, Union Electric and Luminant. All three will use low-enriched uranium supplied by Tenex to fuel their nuclear reactors.</fixed crushing plant specificationp>
Although the value of the Exelon deal has not been revealed, the FuelCo deal is worth more than $1-billion. All these deals involve long-term contracts and all will run from 2014 to 2020.
“We have broken through the wall forbidding us to sell Russian fuel to the American market,” enthused Rosatom head Sergei Kiriyenko on the occasion of the signing of the FuelCo contract. (Tenex is wholly owned subsidiary of Atomenergoprother countries jobs with cement plantsom, which, in turn, is a subisidiary of the Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation, which is owned by the Russian state.)
This breakthrough into the US market was the result of a relaxtion of US antidumping regulations last year. Previously, Russia could only sell uranium in the US, which had been recovered from dismantled nuclear weapons, under a programme designated Megatons to Megawatts.
Now, Tenex has set itself the goal of capcement ball mill grinding internal phototuring 20% to 25% of the US uranium market by 2019. Analysts are forecasting that US uranium prices will fall as more and more of the Russian fuel becomes available on the market.
This expansion into the US is part of Rosatom’s strategy of global expansion. Earlier this year, Atomenergoprom (full name: Atomny Energopromyshleny Kompleks OJSC) signed cooper- ation deals with Toshiba, of Japan, and Siemens, of Germany. Tenex also recently conclucrushing cost on quartzitic sandstone south africaded a $100-million deal with Japanese utility Chubu to supply the latter with low-enriched uranium for ten years, from 2012 to 2022. The Russian group now has business relationships and alliances that embrace the US, Western Europe and Japan.
Also last week, Kiriyenko announced that Atomenergoprom plans to issue rouble bonds worth 100-billion roubles ($3,25-billion) to fund its global expansion. In late May, he reported that Rusindia bauxite ore crushing plantsia has 575 000 t of recoverable uranium reserves and 875 000 t of proven reserves, plus a secret stockpile of the energy metal. Russia now ranks second in the world in terms of uranium reserves and fifth in terms of production.
Atomenergoprom wants to increase its share in the wider nuclear industry (including reactor construction), company executive director Kirill Komarov said at the end of last month. The company is responsible for 17% of world nuclear fuel production, 8% of global uranium-mining, and 28% of new nuclear power plant construction (with ten reactors now being built). Regarding uranium enrichment services, it has 40% of the world market, with its nearest rival having about 20%.
Atomenergoprom produces low-enriched uranium at four plants in Russia, one each in the regions of Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Tomsk and Sverdlovsk. Two of these were established as early as 1949.
It is the low-enriched uranium produced by these plants that Tenex markets internationally. At the start of this year, Tenex’s contract portfolio was worth $11-billion. In 2008, the com- pany’s exports amounted to $3-billion, with 52% going to Europe, 33% to the US, and 15% to Asia and Africa.