 | |
| Company type | Limited company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Nuclear |
| Founded | 1970 |
| Headquarters | Paddington, London, England[1] |
| Products | Fuel |
| Services | Uranium enrichment |
| Revenue | 1,958,000,000 euro (2018)  |
| 1,200,000,000 euro (2018) | |
| 511,000,000 euro (2018) | |
| Owner |
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| Website | www |
TheUrenco Group (urenco) is a multi-national limited company withshares and stocks majority owned by the governments of theNetherlands and theUnited Kingdom with minority shares controlled by German electric utilitiesE.ON andRWE. The Urenco Group operates severaluranium enrichment plants in Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, and the United Kingdom.[2] It supplies nuclear power stations in about 15 countries, and states that it had a 29% share of the global market for enrichment services in 2011.[3][4] Urenco usescentrifuge enrichment technology.[5]
Urenco, headquartered in Paddington,London England, is owned one third by the UK government, one third by the Dutch government, and the final third equally by two major German utilities,E.ON andRWE.[6]
Urenco is owned in three equal parts by Ultra-Centrifuge Nederland NV (owned by theGovernment of the Netherlands), Uranit GmbH (owned equally by German energy companiesE.ON andRWE)[7] and Enrichment Holdings Ltd (owned by theGovernment of the United Kingdom and managed byUK Government Investments).[8] The company was set up in 1971, pursuant to the Treaty of Almelo (named afterthe city in the Netherlands where the company originated), which restricts the sale of ownership stakes.[9][10]
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Urenco Deutschland, Urenco UK, and Urenco Nederland are 100% subsidiaries of Urenco Enrichment Company. They operate enrichment plants atGronau,Westphalia, Germany, atCapenhurst, England, and atAlmelo, Netherlands.[5]
In the United States, where Urenco is represented by its marketing subsidiary Urenco, Inc., the Urenco USA facility became operational in spring 2010. Called theNational Enrichment Facility, it is located 5 miles (8.0 km) east ofEunice, New Mexico, and is operated by Urenco's subsidiary Louisiana Energy Services (LES).[11]
Urenco also owns a 50% interest inEnrichment Technology Company [nl] (ETC), a company jointly owned withAreva. 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).[11][12]
In 2025, infrastructure companyCostain Group was contracted to upgrade the infrastructure at the Capenhurst plant. This will enable establishing Europe's firsthigh-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) enrichment facility.[13]
Urenco Netherlands BV has dismantled enrichment plant SP3, after thedecommissioning of SP1 and SP2 in the 1980s and 1990s. Information about decommissioning cost calculations for Urenco facilities is not accessible.[14][15]
In the 1970s,Abdul Qadeer Khan, who worked for a subcontractor of Urenco inAlmelo, brought the drawings of the centrifuges operated by Urenco to Pakistan by skipping the Urenco administration and the Dutch government. Those blueprints were stolen from the Urenco administration. In early 1974, Khan joined theProject-706 uranium enrichment programme, launched byMunir Ahmad Khan underZulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistani Prime Minister at that time. Later, he took over the project, and established a facility that producedhighly enriched uranium (HEU). Within a short span of time he established a highly advanced uranium enrichment facility nearIslamabad.[16]
In May 1985, theUnited 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 underapartheid South Africa, because Urenco had been importing uranium ore from theRössing 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.[17]
According toGreenpeace, Urenco has a contract with Russia for the disposal ofradioactive waste. In reality, these contracts do not relate to the disposal of waste, but to the sale ofdepleted uranium tails, which are re-enriched tonatural uranium equivalent.[18][19] As the enricher, Russia would be the owner of any radioactive waste that results from this process. In March 2009, there were protests about the largest-ever load ofdepleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) being transported from Germany to theSiberian townSeversk.[citation needed]
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