Urenco&#x27;s chief commercial officer Laurent Odeh joins us and outlines how the leading uranium enrichment company is expanding its operations in the US, the Netherlands and Germany to meet the growing demand for nuclear fuel. Demand which is coming from both existing units and also some of the growing numbers of advanced reactors in development. He talks about the company&#x27;s history and the experience it has gained, including the decisions it had to take during the 2010s and how they fit in with what is now a record order book for Urenco&#x27;s services. Odeh says that it is quicker to expand enrichment capacity than it is to build a new nuclear power plant, so is confident that enrichment services will be able to keep track with any rapid future nuclear energy capacity growth. He also gives an update on Urenco&#x27;s development of LEU+ and HALEU fuel capabilities, as well as talking about the medical isotopes business that Urenco is growing, plus the decommissioning side of its work. And, in a wide-ranging discussion, Odeh says what he wants to see governments doing to help support the nuclear fuel cycle and wider nuclear energy growth in the years ahead. Key links to find out more: Urenco Urenco to build new US enrichment plant capacity World Nuclear News Email newsletter: Sign up to the World Nuclear News daily or weekly news round-ups Contact info: alex.hunt@world-nuclear.org Episode credit: Presenter Alex Hunt. Co-produced and mixed by Pixelkisser Production

Urenco scaling up capacity to meet rising nuclear fuel demand

World Nuclear News

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** World Nuclear News

## Transcript

Hello and welcome to the World Nuclear News podcast. I'm Alex Hunt. In this edition, we're looking at the work of Urenco, the international supplier of enrichment services and fuel cycle products for the civil nuclear industry across the world. In addition to hearing about the company's expansion plans, we'll also be discussing the broader opportunities and challenges from meeting demands for new products for advanced reactors, as well as a proposed rapid increase in global nuclear capacity.

To find out more about all these issues, I'm delighted to be joined by Laurent Audet, Chief Commercial Officer for Urenco. Hello and welcome. Hi, Alex. Nice to be here. Before we get into the main substance of our discussion, can you give our listeners a brief overview of your background and career and how you came to be in your current role? Yeah, sure. So I started my career in finance and then moved on to the mining industry by chance or luck, you name it.

Moved on to Canada and then Australia. I was working primarily for aluminium and copper producers. And then a small part of that business was uranium mining. And you can probably tell by my accent that I come from a country just across the channel and there's a big nuclear fleet there. So they were interested in me joining the uranium business, which I did in 2012 for Rio Tinto. I spent three years working for Rio Tinto Uranium. I got acquainted with Urenco.

After my stand at Rio Tinto, I went back to Paris, did an executive MBA and then moved back to the UK after Brexit to work in the nuclear industry in 2017, which raised a few eyebrows. That's when I joined Urenco initially as executive director for new business. And then in 2019, I moved on to my current position as chief commercial officer. Moving back to the UK after Brexit must have been an unusual direction of travel at that time.

It was an unusual direction of travel at that time, but we were very, very happy in London as a family. Both of my children were both were born in London. And also I was raised and born and raised in France. Nuclear has always been very important in this country. I always believed that nuclear had a role to play. Now in 2017, that wasn't high up on the agenda, but things have changed for the good since then. And for those who might not be familiar with the work that Urenco does,

can you give us an overview of its history, what it does and where it's operating? Yeah, sure. So Urenco is a leading enrichment company. We provide the third step in the nuclear fuel cycle. So you've got mining, conversion and then enrichment, and then you carry on with fabrication. So Urenco was established in 1970 through the Treaty of Almelo between three countries, the UK, the Netherlands and Germany. Today we have four enrichment facilities in four different countries.

The UK in Cape and Earth, Almelo in the Netherlands, Grosau in Germany, so the three founding countr...

Urenco scaling up capacity to meet rising nuclear fuel demand

Transcript

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Urenco scaling up capacity to meet rising nuclear fuel demand

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.