Centrus–Oklo multi-year HALEU deal: fuel security and siting notes for engineers
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell
First reported on MINING.com
30 Second Briefing
US nuclear fuel supplier Centrus Energy has signed a multi-year letter of intent to provide domestically produced high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) from its American Centrifuge Plant in Pike County, Ohio, to power five of Oklo’s Aurora fast-fission small modular reactors within a planned 1.2 GW campus. First fuel delivery is targeted for 2029, aligned with a multi-billion-dollar expansion of the Piketon enrichment plant backed by a $900 million US Department of Energy HALEU task order, expected to add 1,000 construction and 300 operating jobs. The deal underpins fuel security for Oklo’s liquid-metal-cooled, low-water Aurora Powerhouses, which will supply Meta’s data centres under a build-own-operate model.
Technical Brief
- Oklo’s Aurora units use liquid‑metal cooling with low‑water requirements, suiting water‑constrained or remote industrial loads.
- Inherent safety characteristics of the Aurora fast‑fission design target passive response and reduced active safety system complexity.
- Oklo’s build‑own‑operate commercial model shifts capex and operating risk from offtakers to the plant owner.
- Co‑located HALEU deconversion JV under consideration would cut transport interfaces and handling steps in the fuel cycle.
Our Take
Oklo’s role in Meta’s up-to-6.6 GW US nuclear supply deals for data centres means this HALEU offtake from Centrus Energy is effectively being underwritten by long-dated digital‑infrastructure demand, which tends to be less cyclical than traditional utility load growth.
The 2029 first‑delivery horizon aligns with the broader wave of advanced reactor projects in the USA in our database, suggesting that Centrus’ Piketon enrichment capacity could become a key bottleneck or price‑setter for HALEU if competing SMR and microreactor vendors reach FID on similar timelines.
With roughly US$2.7 billion in US orders to boost uranium enrichment and a US$900 million DOE task order already in play, Centrus’ American Centrifuge Plant in Ohio is positioned in our coverage as one of the few domestic assets capable of materially reducing reliance on Russian enrichment services for advanced reactors.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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