ConverDyn considering building Metropolis 2.0 plant, conference told

ConverDyn, a partnership between Solstice Advanced Materials and General Atomics, is the exclusive marketing agent for all uranium hexafluoride produced at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission-licensed Metropolis Works plant.

Hyder Ramatala, the company's Director, Marketing & Sales, told the World Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference 2026 in Monaco that greater market certainty led to the announcement in February of plans to increase output at its plant in Illinois, which is currently the only domestic uranium conversion facility in the USA.

Now, Ramatala said, the company has begun analysis of a possible new plant he described as Metropolis 2.0.

"We've retained an engineering firm that will perform an analysis on how long it will take, how much it will cost, even something as simple as whether modularity is possible in the conversion space," he said.

Investment decisions need to be supported by the right market conditions: "You bring conversion on in thousands of tons at a time, but you don't want to have idle capacity. You don't want to bring on conversion that enrichers aren't going to use. And so part of the analysis is just making sure that when we bring this capacity online, it is needed through supporting contracts from the industry."

Solstice was spun off from General Atomics' former joint venture partner Honeywell in October 2025, and Ramatala said Solstice's "interest in growth" had marked a "sea change" for ConverDyn to be able to start evaluating these measures.

Solstice has already identified a short-term supply gap of about 3,000 tons of UF6 production - the same amount as the planned expansion of Metropolis, Ramatala said. A potential second facility would depend on a "whole multitude of factors" as well as demand, questions which the "leading engineering firm" engaged by the company to undertake the analysis is expected to answer "before the end of the year".

Solstice, as a new company in this space, is growth-oriented and has the energy to move quickly, he added. "So I'm hoping if I speak at WNFC next year, that we'll have some good news to share."

Metropolis was built in the 1950s to meet military conversion requirements, and began providing UF6 for civilian use in the late 1960s. It is currently licensed until 2060. Original nameplate capacity was up to 15,000 tU per year, but this was reduced to 7000 tU per year in 2017 in light of global demand. Honeywell announced in November 2017 the temporary suspension of UF6 production at Metropolis pending an improvement in business conditions. The decision was a result of "significant challenges" faced by the nuclear industry at that time, including a worldwide oversupply of UF6. The plant was restarted in July 2023.