overfeeding wird möglich...
dazu converdyn im august, hab nur noch keine meldung gelesen wonach sie bereits auf vollauslastung....
zu wichtig es nicht einzustellen.
The Metropolis uranium conversion facility in the US state of Illinois is now expected to reach its targeted annual production rate of 7,000 tons of uranium as UF6 by next month, despite delays to the plant’s restart and a series of UF6 leaks. Metropolis’ conversion marketer ConverDyn, a joint venture of Honeywell and General Atomics, is currently sold out through 2028, but with more robust demand potentially triggered by a proposed US ban on Russian low-enriched uranium (LEU) imports, Metropolis could expand production further.
Backstopped by long-term supply contracts, the sole US-based UF6 plant is slated to produce 5,000 tU as UF6 in 2023, and going into 2024 it appears likely to almost immediately push output beyond the existing annual target of 7,000 tU as UF6. But while plant owner Honeywell is expected to exercise flexibility to expand production at Metropolis to 8,000 tU as UF6 per year in part by shortening its planned outages, an expansion to licensed annual operating capacity of 15,000 tU as UF6 would take a heavy lift. Any expansion beyond 8,000 tU as UF6 per year would require a decision from Honeywell’s board of directors, which is keen to avoid another oversupply scenario that led to the plant’s prior shutdown.
“We are concentrating on bringing the plant back online,” ConverDyn President and CEO Malcolm Critchley told a nuclear fuel conference last month. “So we haven't really determined exactly what's going to be involved and what's going to be necessary in order to expand the plant or indeed what level we might expand the plant to, and we certainly haven't gone out to our supply chain to get a fully cost estimate.” But as Critchley pointed out, inflationary and supply chain pressures have eased since the plant was in restart mode. "We think an expansion will be affordable, depending upon what level we decide to go to,” he added.
Of the three European or North American UF6 producers, Metropolis is uniquely suited to capacity expansion. Orano’s Philippe Coste conversion complex (also known as Comurhex II) in Southern France is completing a decades-long project to replace and expand Comurhex, and Cameco’s Port Hope UF6 plant near Toronto, Canada, has relatively hard geographical limits to any expansion. Supply of Western nuclear fuel has become increasingly tight since Russia's invasion of Ukraine and has led to capacity expansion decisions by enrichers Orano and Urenco. This in turn has led to Western UF6 supply drying up — ConverDyn has no unsold material to offer until January 2029.
“There is no meaningful supply being added,” one conversion market source told Energy Intelligence. So fortunately for ConverDyn, “there is nothing in the way of prices going up, really.”
Metropolis Resurrected
The Metropolis plant was expected to restart operations by Apr. 1 at an annual capacity of 7,000 tU as UF6, but that was delayed by some three months. This was in part due to the hiring and training of new workers, since few of the plant’s prior workforce returned after the plant was idled in 2018 due to market oversupply, following an extended outage in October 2017.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the restart was also plagued with “significant inflationary and supply chain issues,” Critchley said at last month’s conference. When Metropolis did restart UF6 production in early July, it was amid a series of UF6 spills associated with aging infrastructure. Even once restarted, the plant continued to experience leaks and other technical problems requiring the incremental modernization of equipment and components. With the resolution of those problems, the plant has since begun to operate more smoothly. In fact, Energy Intelligence understands the daily rate of production has sufficiently increased to meet the plant's 2023 product target, in spite of the delays.
The decision to restart the plant was not an easy one, and any future expansion will face similar scrutiny. "I am extremely sensitive about causing us to go back to where we were before we did the shutdown," said Critchley. "When we're considering expansion options, I will always err on the side of caution unless we have firm contracts that back the expansion, so we know exactly what we're facing going forward."
das sind mindestens 35.000tu(ca 77.000.000 lbs) die für uf6 benötigt werden.
je nach tails assay(overfeeding) wird mehr uf6 - und damit uran benötigt.
Estimated world primary conversion capacity 2020
| Orano* |
France |
Pierrelatte & Malvési |
15,000 |
17% |
2600 |
| CNNC† |
China |
Lanzhou & Hengyang |
15,000 |
53% |
8000 |
| Cameco |
Canada |
Port Hope |
12,500 |
72% |
9000 |
| Rosatom |
Russia |
Seversk |
12,500
|
96% |
12,000 |
| ConverDyn‡ |
USA |
Metropolis |
7000 |
0% |
0 |
| Total |
|
|
62,000 |
51% |
31,600 |
World Nuclear Association Nuclear Fuel Report (2021 edition)
World enrichment capacity – operational and planned
| Country |
Company and plant |
2020 capacity
(thousand SWU/yr) |
| France |
Areva, Georges Besse I & II |
7500 |
| Germany-Netherlands-UK |
Urenco: Gronau, Germany; Almelo, Netherlands; Capenhurst, UK. |
13,700 |
| USA |
Urenco, New Mexico |
4900 |
| Russia |
Tenex: Angarsk, Novouralsk, Zelenogorsk, Seversk |
27,700 |
| China |
CNNC, Hanzhun & Lanzhou |
6300 |
| Other |
Various: Argentina, Brazil, India, Pakistan, Iran |
66 |
| |
Total SWU/yr approx |
60,166 |
| |
Requirements (WNA reference scenario) |
50,205 |
Source: WNA Nuclear Fuel Report 2021 and company websites
World enrichment capacity – operational in 2020 and planned
| Operator |
Capacity (thousand SWU/yr) |
| 2020 |
2025 |
2030 |
| CNNC |
6300 |
11,000 |
17,000 |
| Orano |
7500 |
7500 |
7500 |
| Rosatom |
27,700 |
26,200 |
24,800 |
| Urenco |
18,600 |
17,300 |
16,300 |
| Other |
66 |
375 |
525 |
| Total |
60,166 |
62,375 |
66,125 |
Source: World Nuclear Association Nuclear Fuel Report 2021 and company websites
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