Nuclear Fuel / Companies In Talks Over European Facility In Bid To Bypass Russia

Plans also under consideration for enrichment plant in US

Companies In Talks Over European Facility In Bid To Bypass Russia
Some spent nuclear reactor fuel in France is reprocessed at nuclear fuel cycle company Orano’s reprocessing facility at La Hague in Normandy.

France’s EDF is in talks with French nuclear fuel specialist Orano and US-based Westinghouse Electric Company over the construction of a nuclear facility in Western Europe that would help the company to bypass Russia for supplies of reprocessed fuel used in France’s power stations, press reports said.

“We’re working with Orano and Westinghouse on the creation of a plant in Western Europe that would perform the conversion of reprocessed uranium,” Jean-Michel Quilichini, head of the nuclear fuel unit at EDF, said at a nuclear industry conference in Paris, according to Bloomberg.

EDF uses uranium that undergoes a part of the recycling process at a Russian plant in Siberia for a handful of its 56 reactors, based on a long-term contract that was signed before the start of the war in Ukraine, Quilichini said.

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