Centrus shipped the first new centrifuge built in Oak Ridge to expand its Ohio uranium enrichment plant

Centrus Energy Corp. shipped the first newly built centrifuge for its Piketon, Ohio, uranium enrichment plant out of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, on Oct. 29. The machine is the first of a build-out that company executives describe in the thousands. Centrus staged a press event with government officials at its Technology and Manufacturing Center in Oak Ridge to mark the departure.

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Amir Vexler, Centrus president and chief executive, told the gathering that the shipment “may sound like a simple shipment from one facility to another, but it represents something much larger.”

An Oak Ridge shipment and the 11,519 machines still to come

The unit that left Oak Ridge is the first centrifuge built for the expansion of the Piketon plant, according to ANS Nuclear Newswire’s account of the event. Completed machines travel to Ohio for final assembly into cascades, the linked banks of centrifuges that actually separate uranium isotopes, and they join the one cascade already running at the American Centrifuge Plant.

Patrick Brown, Centrus senior vice president of field operations and president of American Centrifuge Operating, told attendees that the shipped unit is the first of thousands the company plans to build. At Piketon, he said, one machine would be filled that day and 11,519 more were still to come. His arithmetic implies a finished plant of roughly 11,520 centrifuges, though the company has not published a capacity figure to go with that count.

Centrus said in its release filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that both the shipment and the completed U.S. supply chain arrived ahead of the company’s year-end target. The technology is fully licensed and has logged more than four million machine-hours of operation, the filing says.

Tennessee’s political establishment filled the company’s release with statements. Gov. Bill Lee praised the state’s part in strengthening the nuclear fuel supply chain, Sen. Bill Hagerty said the Oak Ridge machines will help build nuclear energy infrastructure, and Rep. Chuck Fleischmann called shipping the first set of components a major milestone. Matt Rasmussen, chief nuclear officer of the Tennessee Valley Authority, said TVA backs efforts that strengthen national energy security. The release does not say which of them stood at the Oak Ridge event in person.

Westerman casings and a supply chain built from American parts

Centrus completed its purchase of Westerman Holdings in October, folding in a maker of centrifuge casings and other large components. The new cascades are meant to use machines made only with U.S. parts, and the casings are one of the pieces that used to be hardest to source at home. The company says it has made thousands of individual components and has ordered tens of thousands more from domestic manufacturers.

Oak Ridge restarted centrifuge manufacturing in December 2025, and in January 2026 Centrus announced a $560 million investment to turn the center into a high-rate plant. Oak Ridge Mayor Warren Gooch cited that figure and nearly 430 new jobs at the event, according to the company’s release. The existing Ohio cascade, by contrast, has produced high-assay low-enriched uranium, known as HALEU, since late 2023 and still contains some components dating to 2019.

Product plans cover three markets. Centrus intends to enrich low-enriched uranium for the current reactor fleet, HALEU for next-generation designs, and material for national security needs.

Unobligated uranium and a rival in the same city

The U.S.-only parts requirement matters because of a category called unobligated uranium, which is produced without foreign equipment or material and is the grade national security projects require. ANS reports that the Oak Ridge center is the only American plant building gas centrifuges for commercial enrichment, so its output would likely qualify. Louisiana Energy Services in Eunice, New Mexico, a subsidiary of Urenco USA, does not make unobligated uranium, the same report says.

A Government Accountability Office report from August 2026, as summarized by ANS, estimated that the National Nuclear Security Administration’s existing unobligated supply would last into the 2040s. The report added that unobligated HALEU is not needed now but could be later. BWX Technologies began making centrifuges at its own Centrifuge Manufacturing Development Facility in Oak Ridge in January, though BWXT does not plan to enrich uranium for the commercial market.

A $900 million task order and a 2029 start

Money for the Ohio side comes in part from a Department of Energy award for HALEU production at the American Centrifuge Plant, valued at $900 million. World Nuclear News reports the task order carries options of up to $170 million more, for a possible $1.07 billion, and that Centrus also drew $70 million from Tennessee’s Nuclear Energy Fund. ANS has covered the DOE contract’s effect on Centrus’s HALEU goals separately.

The Ohio expansion is expected to create 1,000 construction jobs and 300 operating jobs and to retain 150 existing positions, World Nuclear News says. None of the new capacity will be running soon: Centrus expects the first of it to come online in 2029, which leaves a long gap between one shipped machine and 11,519 more.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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