Uranium enrichment is the process of increasing the proportion of the fissile isotope uranium-235 (U-235) in a uranium feedstock. Natural uranium contains only 0.7% U-235, with the remainder being non-fissile U-238. Most commercial nuclear reactors require fuel enriched to 3-5% U-235 (low-enriched uranium, or LEU), while advanced reactor designs demand higher enrichment levels up to 20% (HALEU). The dominant enrichment technology today is gas centrifuge separation, in which uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas is spun at extremely high speeds, exploiting the slight mass difference between U-235 and U-238 isotopes to achieve separation. Older gaseous diffusion technology has been largely retired due to its enormous energy consumption.
The global enrichment market is dominated by a small number of players. Urenco, a European consortium with facilities in the UK, Netherlands, Germany, and the United States, is the Western world's leading enrichment provider. In September 2025, the NRC authorized Urenco USA to enrich up to 10% U-235 (LEU+), enabling production of fuel for next-generation reactor designs without requiring a full HALEU production license. Urenco is adding 2.5 million SWU of new capacity, with 700,000 SWU at its U.S. site by 2027. Orano (formerly Areva) operates the Georges Besse II centrifuge plant in France and is planning a new U.S. enrichment facility with an NRC license application expected in H1 2026 and production by 2031, at a total cost of approximately $5 billion. Centrus Energy (NYSE: LEU) is the only U.S. company currently producing HALEU, operating a demonstration cascade at Piketon, Ohio, with a $900 million DOE task order to expand to full-scale production.
The geopolitics of enrichment shifted dramatically in 2024 when the United States banned imports of Russian enriched uranium. Russia, through Rosatom's TENEX subsidiary, had been the world's largest enrichment services provider, supplying approximately 35% of global capacity and virtually all commercial HALEU. This ban accelerated Western investment in domestic enrichment capacity, with total DOE enrichment funding exceeding $2.7 billion. The enrichment supply chain is measured in Separative Work Units (SWU), a metric that quantifies the effort required to separate U-235 from U-238. Higher enrichment levels require exponentially more SWU per unit of product, making HALEU significantly more expensive to produce than conventional LEU fuel.