Chemistry & Enrichment, a cutting-edge technology

Orano runs its Front-End fuel-cycle activities across a benchmark industrial platform including the sites of Malvési (Aude) and Tricastin (Drôme/Vaucluse). For almost 60 years, it has specialized in uranium conversion and fluorine chemistry.
The uranium from the mines is purified and converted into enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF6) containing up to 5% of uranium 235, used to manufacture nuclear fuel for French and international electricity companies.
Our customers’ security of supply is guaranteed by the conversion and enrichment plants, which have been entirely modernized to the highest nuclear- and industrial-safety standards, and now have a reduced environmental footprint.

• Around one hundred customers worldwide.
• A robust order backlog.
• The first industry player in the world to modernize its conversion production facilities.
• An overhauled industrial platform guaranteeing its customers security of supply over the long term.
• An 80% reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions and a 96% fall in electricity consumption since 2004.

• 90 million The enriched uranium produced can supply 90 million households with low-carbon energy each year*. * Energy equivalent to the consumption of all the households in France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

• 26% of Orano’s revenue

• 7,5 million SWUs per year for enrichment (SWU = Separative Work Units)

• 2,400 employees

• 15,000 tonnes of installed capacity for conversion per year