USEC
Inc. and B&W Launch American Centrifuge Manufacturing
Joint Company Based in Tennessee Is Key Supplier for American
Centrifuge Plant
BETHESDA, Md. - USEC Inc. (NYSE: USU) and The Babcock &
Wilcox Company (B&W) have launched American Centrifuge Manufacturing, LLC
(ACM) to provide integrated manufacturing and assembly of centrifuge machines
for USEC's American Centrifuge
Plant in Piketon,
Ohio. Based in Oak Ridge, Tenn., ACM will also provide spare parts and other
maintenance support services for the American Centrifuge Project.
USEC established American Centrifuge
Manufacturing, effective May 1, in concert with the B&W subsidiary
Babcock & Wilcox Technical Service Group, Inc. (B&W TSG).
The company will be housed at USEC's American
Centrifuge Technology and Manufacturing Center, which has been operated by
Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services Clinch River, LLC since 2007.
Approximately 160 B&W TSG and USEC employees working at the Oak Ridge
facility have been assigned to the new company.
Once the U.S. Department of Energy loan
guarantee and other centrifuge project funding needed to complete the
American Centrifuge Plant is secured and the project is remobilized, the
total number of ACM workers is expected to grow to about 600 as ACM ramps up
to the full manufacturing rate. Overall, the American Centrifuge Project will
create about 8,000 jobs in total, with nearly half of them in Ohio.
Approximately 11,500 centrifuges will be built for final assembly and
installation in Piketon.
Carl Durham, who serves as president of
Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services Clinch River, is now president and
general manager of the new company. Larry Cutlip,
who is USEC's director of centrifuge manufacturing, is vice president.
"American Centrifuge Manufacturing will
be a critical part of the American Centrifuge Project as it focuses on
manufacturing and delivering high-quality commercial centrifuges," said
Phil Sewell, USEC senior vice president of American Centrifuge and Russian
HEU, and chair of the ACM Board of Managers. "Combining USEC's expertise
in centrifuge technology with Babcock & Wilcox's decades of manufacturing
expertise, ACM will integrate the activities of multiple suppliers and
deliver finished centrifuge machines to the American Centrifuge Plant on time
and on budget."
Sewell added that the project will offer
national security and non-proliferation benefits for the United States as a
source of supply to meet defense requirements and to support the U.S. role in
assuring international nuclear fuel supplies are available to countries that
forgo the deployment of sensitive nuclear fuel technologies.
The American Centrifuge is USEC's
next-generation uranium enrichment technology. It is based on U.S. centrifuge
technology, a proven, energy-efficient technology originally developed by the
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and significantly improved by USEC using
updated materials and manufacturing methods.
Working together, USEC and B&W teams have
developed a unique domestic manufacturing capability that ACM will now put
into commercial operations as an integrated joint company.
Technology
American Centrifuge Manufacturing will be one
of two major USEC centrifuge-related initiatives in Oak Ridge. ACM will focus
on manufacturing. A separate group comprised of USEC personnel, located at
USEC's Centrifuge Technology
Center and the East
Tennessee Technology
Park, will be the hub for
the technology behind the centrifuge program, serving as the design agent for
the project and conducting on-going machine design, development and testing
activities.
The centrifuge technology activity also uses
the services of Oak Ridge National Laboratory employees under a Cooperative
Research and Development Agreement with DOE. These activities have been under
way in Oak Ridge since 2002 and will continue as an integral part of the
American Centrifuge Program.
About
USEC Inc.
USEC Inc., a global energy company, is a
leading supplier of enriched uranium fuel for commercial nuclear power
plants. On line at www.usec.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains
"forward-looking statements" - that is, statements related to
future events. In this context, forward-looking statements may address our
expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words
such as "expects," "anticipates," "intends,"
"plans," "believes," "will" and other words of
similar meaning. Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters
that are, to different degrees, uncertain. For USEC, particular risks and
uncertainties that could cause our actual future results to differ materially
from those expressed in our forward-looking statements include, but are not
limited to: risks related to the deployment of the American Centrifuge
technology, including risks related to performance, cost, schedule and
financing; our success in obtaining a loan guarantee from DOE for the
American Centrifuge Plant, including our ability to address the technical and
financialconcerns raised by DOE and the timing of
any loan guarantee; our ability to reach agreement with DOE on acceptable
terms of a conditional commitment, including the timing of any decision and
the determination of credit subsidy cost, and our ability to meet all
required conditions to funding; our ability to obtain additional financing beyond
the $2 billion of DOE loan guarantee funding for which we have applied,
including our success in obtaining Japanese export credit agency financing of
$1 billion; the impact of the demobilization of the American Centrifuge
Project and uncertainty regarding our ability to remobilize the project and
the potential for termination of the project; our ability to meet the
November 2011 financing milestone and other milestones under the June 2002
DOE-USEC Agreement; restrictions in our credit facility that may impact our
operating and financial flexibility and spending on the American Centrifuge
Project; risks related to the completion of the remaining two phases of the
three-phased strategic investment by Toshiba Corporation
("Toshiba") and Babcock & Wilcox Investment Company
("B&W"), including our ability to satisfy the significant
closing conditions in the securities purchase agreement governing the
transactions and our ability to close on the second phase of the transactions
prior to the outside date of June 30, 2011, and the impact of a failure to
consummate the transactions on our business and prospects; our ability to
achieve the benefits of any strategic relationships with Toshiba and B&W;
changes in U.S. government priorities and the availability of government funding,
including loan guarantees; and other risks and uncertainties discussed in our
filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual
Report on Form 10-K, which is available on our website at www.usec.com. We do not undertake to update our
forward-looking statements except as required by law.
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Contacts:
Media: Paul Jacobson (301)
564-3399
Investors: Steven Wingfield (301)
564-3354
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