Antares has secured the first long-term commercial contract for High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) enrichment services from Urenco, a critical milestone for the microreactor sector that has long been starved for reliable Western fuel supply.
The agreement gives Antares access to HALEU produced at Urenco’s new enrichment facility in the United Kingdom, scheduled to come online in 2031. While still years away, the deal marks the first time a Western supplier has committed to multi-year commercial HALEU deliveries outside of government allocations.
The decision by the leading microreactor developer in the US to sign their first long-term contract with an international supplier brings immediate concern to the speed of development in the US for the expansion of enrichment capacity. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent (with billions more pledged) on companies including Centrus and General Matter by the federal government. Yet Antares chose to buy their enrichment services overseas...
“We are pleased to execute with Antares the world’s first multi-year contract for the supply of HALEU, which marks an important milestone in the maturation of this new market,” said Magnus Mori, Urenco’s Head of Advanced Fuels.
Antares CEO Jordan Bramble was equally direct: “Microreactors fueled with HALEU will be more performant and more economical. This partnership ensures that when we scale beyond material allocated by the federal government, we will have commercial supply ready to meet our needs.”
Antares is one of the more advanced microreactor developers, with a sodium heat-pipe design, factory production model, and recent selection for the Department of the Air Force’s Advanced Nuclear Power for Installations program.
The company is on track to take their first reactor critical prior to July 4th.
HALEU remains the single biggest constraint for the entire advanced reactor wave. While the U.S. has made real regulatory progress and DOE allocations have helped early movers, commercial-scale Western production has been painfully slow. Most developers are still relying on limited government stockpiles or waiting on facilities that won’t be ready until the early 2030s.
This Urenco-Antares deal doesn’t solve the near-term crunch, but it does show that serious commercial players are finally moving beyond announcements and into actual supply agreements.