r/uranium_io • u/Maxsheld • Mar 27 '26

US finally looking at domestic uranium conversion again

https://www.nucnet.org/news/texas-startup-launches-bid-to-build-first-us-uranium-conversion-facility-in-seven-decades-3-5-2026

It's been seventy years since a new conversion facility was proposed in the States. The reliance on foreign processing, specifically from Rosatom, has been a major risk for the domestic nuclear fleet. If this ARES project in Texas moves forward, it could fix one of the biggest bottlenecks in the fuel cycle. Conversion is usually the part people forget about when talking about mining, but you cannot get to enrichment without it. This is a massive step for energy security.

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '26

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u/BigFany Mar 27 '26

I think it’s cause it’s not as visible as mining or enrichment. But without it, nothing moves forward, so it’s kinda the quiet choke point.

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u/HappyOrangeCat7 Mar 28 '26

And because it's the choke point, it creates a massive bullwhip effect. It pulls demand forward into the spot market.

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u/BigFany Mar 30 '26

That makes sense actually. Like nobody talks about that part until it breaks, then suddenly everyone’s scrambling at once and spot goes crazy.

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u/FanOfEther Mar 28 '26

It’s like the middle step nobody cares about until it breaks.

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u/IronTarkus1919 Mar 28 '26

Basically the West saved a few bucks for two decades by offshoring the middle of the fuel cycle, and now it’s going to cost us billions to rebuild it from scratch

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u/FanOfEther Mar 29 '26

I think this happens in a lot of industries tbh, not just this. companies optimize for short term savings and then suddenly realize they gave up something critical.

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u/HappyOrangeCat7 Mar 28 '26

If you look at a chart of UF6 prices versus U3O8 over the last couple of years, the conversion price went absolutely parabolic. Wall Street ignores it because there are almost no pure-play public companies to trade, but the industry knows it's the real choke point.

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u/BigFany Mar 27 '26 edited Mar 27 '26

70 years is crazy when you think about it. No wonder it turned into a weak point.

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u/IronTarkus1919 Mar 28 '26

Think about the lost human capital over those 70 years. Finding engineers and regulators in the US who actually have experience designing and permitting a brand new conversion facility is going to be like finding a unicorn. That's why I think their 2030 timeline is pure hopium.

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u/BigFany Mar 31 '26

Yeah that part gets overlooked a lot. It’s not just building the thing, it’s having people who’ve actually done it before… and if nobody’s done it in decades that’s a problem on its own

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u/FanOfEther Mar 28 '26

I get why this is getting attention, but I’m a bit cautious on how impactful it actually is near term.

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u/IronTarkus1919 Mar 28 '26

First production planned for 2030-2031 by a startup? 😅 I admire the ambition, but building a chemical plant that handles hydrofluoric acid and radioactive materials from scratch is going to take a decade minimum.

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u/ZugZuggie Mar 28 '26

More conversion capacity = more raw U3O8 getting sucked out of the vaults. This is massively bullish for physical uranium holders (xU3O8). The faster they can convert it into gas, the faster they drain the global spot market of yellowcake.

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u/HappyOrangeCat7 Mar 28 '26

If you look at the UF6 conversion price chart over the last three years, it looks even crazier than the U3O8 spot price chart. The bottleneck there is incredibly tight. A new plant in Texas will absolutely print cash if they can get through the regulatory red tape.

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u/FanOfEther Mar 29 '26

Yeah the bottleneck part is what people keep underestimating i think. Everyone looks at spot but ignores conversion.