**: Watsba Nuclear Power Plant, Tennessee.
Nuclear Fuel Services (NFS), a subsidiary of BWX Technologies headquartered in the United States, has been awarded a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Value of 1A $2.2 billion extension of contract for the desalination of highly enriched uranium (HEU) to low-enriched uranium (LEU).
Under the contract, NFS will continue to provide scaled-down blending services to TVA in support of the goals of the Department of Energy's (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) defense program. This extension extends the existing downgraded hybrid operation from July 2025 to June 2027.
Low blending is the process by which highly enriched uranium is mixed with natural uranium to produce low enriched uranium required for a variety of commercial and defense uses. NFS has been reducing its highly enriched uranium content since 1995, when it was selected by the United States** to reduce the content of its highly enriched uranium stockpile as part of the Sapphire Project, a covert operation conducted in 1994 to transfer highly enriched uranium from Kazakhstan to the United States. The project is a joint effort between the United States, Kazakhstan and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to secure and remove Kazakhstan's first-class nuclear material after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The operation transported about 600 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from the Ulba Metallurgical Plant in Kazakhstan to Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
"We are proud of the role we play in defense and are excited to continue working with the TVA and NNSA to support this mission," said Ronald K Dailey, President of NFS. This contract extension also allows us to achieve continuity of operations and engineering for the uranium conversion and purification contract we have with the National Nuclear Safety Administration. ”
In 2001, the TVA struck an agreement with the DOE to use diluted uranium as fuel for the Browns Ferry and Watts Bar nuclear power plants. In 2018, NFS received a TVA Value of 50.5 billion dollars of contracts will be 202 tons of HEU are diluted to provide fuel for its nuclear power plant. Work began in early 2019 and will continue until mid-2025. As part of this contract, the Wacbal Nuclear Power Plant began production of tritium for the National Nuclear Safety Administration's nuclear ** refurbishment program.