Ann: HALEU Availability Program Update, page-6

Most of the draft RFP(128 pages) is "boiler plate" and can be skipped. It appears the RFP cover the whole fuel chain up to de-conversion (which will be a separate RFP). It's a fixed price (with inflation adjustment) for the development of a HALEU capability (5 years from award) and then various tranches of production. The RfP includes mining conversion and enrichment up to UF6 HALEU and places emphasis on not disrupting existing Nuclear fuel supplies. It says the mined uranium should ideally be of US origin but could come from US allies; it would appear to me that GLE would want to allow thew DoE tails to be regarded as "mined". It will give Centrus an issue in that the DoE consider the whole nuclear fuel chain since the existing Centrus "demo" will likely get a "black" mark for using LEU as feedstock.

The RfP places a lot of emphasis on "experience" of the nuclear fuel cycle both for the company and it's employees (cost is secondary). In this context GLE do not (as yet) have commercial production experience of mining, conversion and also enrichment (they hope to get that through this project) but Cameco do. It maybe (only speculation) that Cameco decide to prime the DoE contract and use GLE as their enrichment sub-contractor - this would enable them to claim a lot of "experience" in mining, conversion and fabrication (which GLE can't claim) and put the financial "clout" of Cameco behind the project which should give them a leg up on Centrus (who can claim "enrichment" experience and a cat II licence). DoE give themselves the option on one or more suppliers.