Uranium Producer USEC Files for Bankruptcy Protection
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-05/uranium-producer-usec-files-for-bankruptcy-protection.html
Uranium Producer USEC Files for Bankruptcy Protection
By Dawn McCarty and Phil Milford 2014-03-05T15:33:45Z
USEC Inc. (USU), a producer of enriched uranium for nuclear power plants that was sold by the U.S. government in 1998, sought bankruptcy protection with a plan to hand control to noteholders after an oversupply of the fuel hurt its business. The shares fell as much as 29 percent.
The Bethesda, Maryland-based company, which buys some uranium from Russia under a 10-year contract, listed assets of $70 million and debt of $1.07 billion in Chapter 11 papers filed today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware. USEC said in December that it would file bankruptcy to replace $530 million in senior convertible notes coming due in October.
USEC is seeking to clean up its balance sheet as it teams with the U.S. government to finance construction of the American Centrifuge plant in Ohio, which will replace USECs facility in Paducah, Kentucky. USEC posted net losses in the past two years over costs to end uranium enrichment at the Kentucky plant and return the site to the Energy Department.
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Construction has been delayed by difficulties in obtaining permanent financing and a global oversupply of nuclear fuel following the tsunami that damaged Japans Fukushima reactors in 2011 and led to reactor shutdowns in Germany, USEC said.
The resulting oversupply caused nuclear fuel prices to drop to their lowest levels in a decade, which has negatively affected the economics of deploying the American Centrifuge technology in the near term, USEC said in todays statement.
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