Fluor Corp. (Irving, Tex.; www.fluor.com) says that that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) selected Mid-America Conversion Services, LLC (MCS), a joint venture (JV) comprised of Atkins, Fluor and Westinghouse, to operate the depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion facilities at DOE’s Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Paducah, Kentucky, and the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio. The contract is valued at $318 million for the JV over a five-year period of performance beginning in 2016. Work will begin in the first quarter of 2017.
The project includes the operation of DUF6 conversion facilities for the purpose of processing DOE’s inventory of stored DUF6, a co-product of the uranium enrichment process. The facilities convert DUF6 to depleted uranium oxide for possible future reuse, storage or disposal. A co-product of the conversion process is hydrofluoric acid, which can be reused in industrial processes.
Mid-America Conversion Services, LLC, is a fully integrated team, which will operate the two DUF6 conversion facilities to continue the conversion of the DOE’s inventory of approximately 765,000 metric tons of depleted uranium hexafluoride to depleted uranium oxide. The team of leading nuclear industry experts will also broker the sale of the aqueous hydrofluoric acid product and provide surveillance and maintenance services for the DUF6 cylinder inventory.