The Environmental Report (ER) provides an in-depth assessment of potential environmental impacts and demonstrates Orano’s commitment to environmental protection, public health and safety, transparency, and regulatory compliance.
“The submission represents a major licensing milestone and reflects more than a year of comprehensive environmental analysis, technical evaluation, and interagency coordination,” Orano said. “With the ER submitted, the project advances to the next phase of NRC review and is on track for complete facility licence submission to the NRC later this year.”
“With 50 years of safe commercial uranium enrichment operations, including 15 years with gas centrifuges, we have a clear understanding for evaluating our Project IKE development,” said Orano USA CEO Jean-Luc Palayer. “We are pleased to reach this early review stage with the NRC and to submit a detailed and comprehensive Environmental Report addressing the required analyses, including land use, air quality, water quality and use, public and occupational health, and socioeconomics.”
In September 2024, together with the State of Tennessee, Orano announced the selection of Oak Ridge as its preferred site to construct a multi-billion-dollar centrifuge uranium enrichment facility called Project IKE. The selected Project IKE site is in Roane County near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, on greenfield property owned by the US Department of Energy (DOE).
In early January, Orano was selected by the DOE to receive USD900 million of funding to build an enriched uranium production facility in the USA. The total cost of the project is estimated at nearly USD5 billion. At that time, Orano said it was now “able to address the next steps of the project, in particular, a finalisation of the contract and the filing of a licence application with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission in HY1 of 2026”.
Orano noted that the licensing process can last up to three years, though new NRC efficiencies may shorten that duration.
Production of low-enriched uranium at the new facility is scheduled to begin in 2031.
