USEC to close Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant

["Jim Hardeman" <Jim_Hardeman@mail.dnr.state.ga.us>]

Article can be found at http://www.ohio.com/bj/news/ohio/docs/026453.htm 

Jim Hardeman
Jim_Hardeman@dnr.state.ga.us 

=====================

Uranium enrichment plant in Ohio to shut down production

Posted 6:29 EDT June 21, 2000
BY KATHERINE RIZZO
Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The only U.S. company that provides fuel for nuclear power reactors will shut down production next year at one of the nation's two uranium enrichment plants, in Piketon, Ohio, it said Wednesday.

The decision by U.S. Enrichment Corp.'s board of directors will put at least 1,400 people out of work in a section of Appalachia with few well-paying industrial jobs.

USEC will keep a small part of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in southern Ohio open with a few hundred workers for four to five years, until its other plant in Paducah, Ky., is upgraded.

USEC said it can't charge civilian nuclear plants enough to cover the cost of two plants because the worldwide price of uranium has fallen.

``With high production costs and production at only 25 percent capacity at both plants, we must consolidate,'' company president William Timbers said in a prepared statement.


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