USEC Inc. filed for bankruptcy after struggling with weak prices for the enriched uranium it supplies to nuclear power plants and difficulties in financing a major project, Reuters reported today. Prices for low-enriched uranium have plummeted more than 30 percent since March 2011, when a tsunami wrecked four nuclear reactors in Japan. Demand for nuclear fuel remains weak, with more than 50 reactors going off line in Japan and Germany since the tsunami. USEC has also been hit by delays in securing funding for its American Centrifuge Project in Ohio. The company was banking on production from the project after it ceased enriching uranium at two gaseous diffusion plants leased from the Department of Energy. USEC has spent about $2.5 billion to develop the plant and needs more than $4 billion to complete it, the company said in its bankruptcy filing. The company sought a $2 billion loan guarantee from the DOE, but the government proposed a cost-sharing program to demonstrate the capability of the centrifuge technology. The $350 million research and development program, 80 percent funded by DOE, has been extended through April 15.
