The pending bankruptcy of the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) will not affect Russia’s Tekhsnabexport that supplies nuclear materials from Russia to the U.S. Tekhsnabexport is a part of Rosatom, the state nuclear power corporation.

USEC’s bankruptcy is not a surprise to Tekhsnabexport. There is a widely-shared consensus among industry analysts that after the bankruptcy, USEC will only improve and develop. The makeup of the company’s shareholders may change, but its contracts will stay the same.

USEC is one of the world leaders in enriched uranium sales. Other top sellers are Tekhsnabexport, the French company Areva, and the European consortium Urenco. USEC is also a party to the Russian-American agreement for the supply to the United States of highly-enriched and low-enriched uranium (HEU/LEU). USEC is one of the entities through which Russia ships HEU taken from nuclear warheads to U.S. nuclear power plants as fuel.

Russia and the U.S. have now signed an updated contract on LEU shipments because the earlier HEU/LEU contract expired. The new LEU contract is for the supply of USD2.8 billion worth of uranium enrichment services to be rendered to the USEC in the following 10 years.