URENCO Buys Westinghouse interest in LES.
URENCO announced today it was purchasing the 24.5% interest held by Westinghouse Electric Company (owned by BNFL) in Louisiana Energy Services (LES) and the National Enrichment Facility (NEF).
Westinghouse decided to sell its minority interest in LES to URENCO at this time to allow the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) an opportunity to review URENCO as the full general partner rather than having to consider such an ownership change close to the issuance of the license. As the project approaches construction and operations, both companies agreed URENCO is in the best position to manage these activities.
Dr Helmut Engelbrecht, URENCO Chief Executive Officer, who made the announcement from URENCO’s Head Office in Marlow, United Kingdom confirmed: “The transfer of Westinghouse’s interest to the URENCO Group will assist in the progress of the license application and will enable LES to build the NEF to serve its US customer base”.
URENCO looks forward to a timely review and approval by the NRC. Through URENCO as owner of LES, the ultimate shareholders in LES remain unchanged ie. BNFL (the U.K. government), UCN (the Dutch Government), and two German utilities (E.On and RWE).
“This purchase will not change in any way the current LES management or our plans for constructing the NEF once we receive the NRC license. We believe all activities will remain on schedule and LES will work closely with the NRC to assure they have everything they need to approve our purchase of the Westinghouse interest”, Engelbrecht continued by thanking the Westinghouse team for their hard work and support throughout the licensing process.
LES President Jim Ferland said: “the Company will move quickly to submit all the necessary papers with the NRC and expects a smooth process to approve this ownership realignment. URENCO is an outstanding company and their ownership of LES will be well received by all of our employees, customers and contractors in the US” Ferland commented.
The NEF project will provide more than 200 permanent jobs and more than 400 multi-year construction jobs in Southeast New Mexico. It will use a proven technology that has operated safely in Europe for 30 years. When the license application is approved, the NEF will introduce the world’s most advanced uranium enrichment technology into the U.S. and provide an alternative domestic enrichment supply source to U.S. nuclear energy companies.
LES is a partnership of major nuclear energy companies. Partners include URENCO and U.S. energy companies Duke Power, Entergy and Exelon.