Orano Selected for U.S. Department of Energy $900M Energy Security Funding to Produce Low-Enriched Uranium with a New American Uranium Enrichment Facility

BETHESDA, Md., January 5, 2026 – Orano has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for a $900 million award for the domestic production of low-enriched uranium (LEU).

This decision is a key milestone to accelerate Orano’s development of a $5 billion facility project in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to deliver new, diversified, and competitively priced U.S.-based production of enriched uranium for powering American nuclear energy reactors.

Currently, the U.S. imports about two-thirds of the LEU needed to power its nuclear fleet, with imports from Russia being a major foreign source. Orano’s Project IKE facility in Oak Ridge would help replace this Russian enriched uranium, enhancing U.S. energy security and providing a reliable fuel supply after the total ban on Russian imports begins in 2028.

By leveraging internationally proven centrifuge technology and decades of operational expertise, Orano’s development of a new American uranium enrichment facility is designed to quickly produce and scale supply with modular extensions to meet current and future U.S. market needs.

"The decision by the U.S. Department of Energy is a great source of pride as it identifies Orano as a proven nuclear fuel supplier,” said Nicolas Maes, CEO of Orano. “We anticipate writing another chapter of Orano’s decades-long history on American soil with the new Project IKE industrial enrichment facility. For this multibillion-dollar investment, we look forward to finalizing and completing the next milestones and then delivering production at the beginning of the next decade.”

"Orano is the only Western company in the last 15 years that has successfully built and operated a new, modern, commercial-scale gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility with our completion of the Georges Besse II facility in 2011. Plus, we are currently performing a 30% capacity expansion of this facility” said François Lurin, Executive Vice President of Orano's Chemistry and Enrichment business. "Our objective is to apply the best practices from that construction and expansion to the benefit of the Project IKE uranium enrichment facility in Tennessee."

“We are honored by DOE’s decision to identify Project IKE as a key driver for U.S. energy security,” said Jean-Luc Palayer, CEO of Orano USA. “Orano’s Project IKE facility is designed to generate a secure and significant American-based supply of enriched uranium. For Orano, there is no mystery to making enriched uranium—and a lot of it—when you have reliable centrifuges, existing transport containers, and enrichment processes refined over decades of successful commercial operations.”

For 40 years, Orano has reliably produced and delivered enriched uranium to the U.S. reactor fleet from France. Orano’s large production site in Oak Ridge would continue this same reliable fuel supply from an American facility.

Named “Project IKE” in honor of President Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” speech about nuclear energy to the United Nations in 1953, the facility is on track for license submission to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in early 2026.

With timely completion of the legal and contractual framework, the NRC licensing process and an optimized construction schedule, the Project IKE facility aims to produce LEU starting in 2031.

Artificial Intelligence is the key technology of the future global economy, and it consumes enormous amounts of electrical power. Orano’s new U.S. uranium enrichment facility is intended to fuel the nuclear energy expansion needed to support America’s rising energy demand. With a sufficient fuel supply, U.S. nuclear energy will play a primary and increasing role in supplying that power.

To meet the country’s goal of increasing its nuclear energy four-times by 2050 as announced by President Trump last year, domestic uranium enrichment needs to significantly increase. Orano’s Project IKE facility is positioned to provide a large portion of this expected increased nuclear fuel supply, along with other U.S.-based suppliers.

Orano plans to rely on an extensive American supply chain for designing and constructing the Project IKE facility, manufacturing and installing the extensive material-handling equipment and systems, and supporting the ongoing uranium enrichment operations.

Project IKE expects to create more than 1,000 jobs during construction and 300 highly qualified, well-paid jobs during decades of operation.

Learn more about Project IKE: https://www.orano.group/usa/project-ike-enrichment

Download this press release (PDF).

Read the DOE announcement.

Concept rendering of Orano’s planned Project IKE facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.


About Orano USA: Based in Bethesda, MD, with global headquarters in Paris, France, Orano is a leading technology and services provider for the commercial and federal nuclear industries. The company specializes in uranium mining/conversion/enrichment, used nuclear fuel management and recycling, federal site clean-up and closure, and developing nuclear medicines to fight cancer.
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