Urenco Nederland is Urenco’s Dutch enrichment facility. By providing enrichment services for utility customers worldwide, we play an essential role in the global nuclear fuel cycle, which supports the production of clean and reliable energy.
Urenco Nederland
Two enrichment plants, SP4 and SP5, are in operation. Our former plants, SP1, SP2 and SP3, have been fully decommissioned and brought back to green-field sites. SP5 began operations in 2000 and produces more than 80% of Urenco Nederland’s total production capacity.
Urenco Nederland is one of Urenco’s first enrichment facilities, along with our enrichment facility in the UK, Urenco UK. Since 1973, we have used centrifuge technology designed and deployed by Urenco to enrich uranium. In 1975, Urenco delivered on its first SWU contract from pilot plant production in Urenco Nederland and Urenco UK, and in 1977, our first commercial scale plant at Urenco Nederland was formally installed.
Key facts
At our facility, we enrich uranium for low carbon power generation using centrifuge technology designed and developed by Urenco.
Like all our enrichment facilities, we operate within a framework of high environmental, social responsibility and corporate governance standards.
The first enrichment plant at Urenco Deutschland began operations in August 1985.
By the beginning of 1998, the plant reached its original capacity of 1,000 tSW/a. In February 2005, a licence for a second enrichment plant was granted, allowing for our current production capacity.
Our services
Enrichment
Urenco Chemplants operates our new Tails Management Facility in the UK; which deconverts the by-product of enrichment into a more stable form for long term storage for future enrichment of final disposal.
Urenco Isotopes
Urenco Nederland is unique because, besides uranium enrichment, we also use our centrifuge technology to produce a variety of stable isotopes for medical, industrial and research applications. Each year, more than 2 million patient treatments are performed using nuclear medicines produced with Urenco's stable isotope.
Sustainability
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Socio-economic impact analysis
A socio-economic impact assessment, produced by Oxford Economics, reported that:
Capenhurst supported a £547 million contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2023.
The site supported 4,575 jobs around the UK, including its 951 employees.
For every 10 people employed by Urenco, another 38 jobs were supported elsewhere.
It generated enough tax revenues (£130 million) to pay the equivalent annual wages of around 4,000 UK nurses.
Supporting our local communities
Nurturing an interest in science and engineering among young people is also a key part of what we do. Every year, we facilitate science workshops and other educational activities for local schools. Our major educational project for the past year has been supporting the British Science Association with the international expansion of their CREST Awards initiative, a scheme that inspires young people to engage with science and engineering through project work. We have launched our own CREST Discovery resource in the Netherlands, Classroom2030, which is the first CREST Awards resource targeted at schools outside the UK.
Interested in a career with us?
Find out about life at Urenco Nederland.
Visit us
Do you want to learn more about who we are and what we do at Urenco NL?
We are pleased to welcome visitor groups to our enrichment facilities in Almelo. Please fill out the visitor form and we will be happy to organise your visit.
If you aren't able to visit us in person you can learn about our enrichment facilities via our virtual tour.
UNL visitor request form
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