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Uranium conversion & deconversion
UF6 conversion is a three-plant Western market and the Metropolis, Illinois plant is the only US converter.
Conversion is the step everyone forgets and the step that can't be skipped. Mined uranium (U3O8) is useless to an enricher until it is turned into uranium hexafluoride (UF6) — the only chemical form gas centrifuges can spin. That single conversion step is one of the tightest chokepoints in the entire fuel cycle, and it is a three-plant Western market.
Who owns the choke
In the West, civilian UF6 conversion runs through exactly three sites: Cameco's Port Hope in Ontario, Orano's Philippe Coste plant at Tricastin in France, and Metropolis Works in Illinois — the only domestic US converter. Of those, only two are cleanly investable on US markets. The candidate-lead hint here was wrong and the correction matters: Honeywell no longer owns Metropolis. Honeywell spun off Solstice Advanced Materials (NASDAQ: SOLS) on October 30, 2025, and Solstice now operates Metropolis, selling output through the ConverDyn marketing JV with General Atomics. Cameco (NYSE: CCJ) owns Port Hope, one of three Western converters at ~18% of global primary capacity (Orano's larger Tricastin plant leads the West on volume). Orano is French state-owned and unlisted — there is no clean US-listed path to it.
What breaks it
The physical constraint is brutal in its simplicity: you cannot build a converter quickly. Metropolis idled in 2017 and didn't restart until 2023; Russia controls roughly 22% of global conversion capacity and Western utilities have been backing away from it. The result was a price melt-up — conversion jumped roughly fourfold from its lows — and demand that lets the converters book years of supply. Solstice carries a >$2 billion backlog stretching through 2030. There is a separate, even thinner back-end choke: HALEU and advanced-reactor fuel must be deconverted from UF6 back into oxide or metal, and DOE seeded that bench in October 2024 with a six-company, $800M-ceiling IDIQ — BWXT's Nuclear Fuel Services, Centrus (American Centrifuge Operating) and GE Vernova are the US-listed names on it, alongside private/foreign Framatome, Orano and Westinghouse.
What forces the reprice
Two forcing functions. First, capacity decisions: ConverDyn has retained an EPC firm to study "Metropolis 2.0," and Uranium Energy Corp (NYSE American: UEC) launched a subsidiary in September 2025 to study a ~10,000 tU/yr US converter with Fluor. A funded FID on either would be the cleanest catalyst this chokepoint has. Second, the quarterly conversion-price tape: Cameco's fuel-services disclosure publishes the best public read, and at the end of Q1 2026 spot conversion was US$62.50/kgU and long-term US$55.25/kgU. Note the honest nuance — conversion has stopped melting up and is grinding sideways-to-down off its highs even as enrichment kept rising, so this is a tight-supply story, not a still-spiking one.
Be honest about size and earliness
This chokepoint is real but the pure-play exposure is thin, and the listed names are mostly something-else companies. Solstice is the only US converter — and nuclear was only ~$107M of $991M in Q1 2026 net sales (+27% YoY). SOLS is a refrigerants and electronic-materials company with a uranium kicker, not a conversion pure-play. At Cameco, conversion is the smallest leg: Q1 2026 fuel-services adjusted EBITDA was just $54M and actually fell from $75M a year earlier, dwarfed by uranium mining and Westinghouse equity earnings. UEC's converter is a feasibility study with no FID, no site and no regulatory approval — a call option on a license, not a cash flow. The deconversion bench is real but the awards are $2M minimums on a $800M ceiling spread six ways, and for GE Vernova that line is a rounding error against a gas-and-grid franchise. Treat conversion as the structural reason the fuel cycle is tight, and size the listed expressions for what they actually are: diversified balance sheets where conversion is a high-growth sliver, plus one pre-revenue optionality name.
Who owns the choke
BWX Technologies, Inc.
The most diversified US nuclear-components name: sole US naval-reactor fuel supplier (NFS, Erwin TN), TRISO fuel at Lynchburg, and — through its Cambridge, Ontario commercial-nuclear operations — heavy-walled pressure vessels and reactor components (including a GE Hitachi BWRX-300 RPV award). One of six DOE HALEU-deconversion IDIQ awardees. FY2026 guidance raised above $3.75B; backlog ~$8.65B, up 77% YoY.
- Bull
- The most diversified US nuclear-components name spans naval fuel, TRISO, pressure vessels, HALEU deconversion and microreactors, with backlog up 77% to ~$8.65B funding the buildout.
- Bear
- Much of the franchise rides on government and naval programs, leaving commercial-reactor forging and SMR revenue dependent on award timing and customer ramp execution.
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Cameco Corporation
The West's most diversified nuclear fuel-cycle name: tier-one uranium mines (McArthur River/Key Lake, Cigar Lake), Port Hope UF6 conversion, 49% of Global Laser Enrichment (option to 75%), and 49% of Westinghouse (fuel fabrication + AP1000). 2026 own-share uranium guidance ~19.5–21.5M lb U3O8 on an investment-grade balance sheet.
- Bull
- The West's most diversified fuel-cycle name owns tier-one mines, Port Hope conversion, 49% of laser enrichment and 49% of Westinghouse, capturing the chokepoint at every link.
- Bear
- Enrichment and Westinghouse stakes are minority equity-method positions, so much of the fuel-cycle optionality is diluted against the core uranium-mining earnings.
GE Vernova Inc.
GE Vernova's GE Hitachi unit is the BWRX-300 SMR vendor and, via Global Nuclear Fuel, a fuel-fabrication participant; it is also one of six DOE HALEU-deconversion IDIQ awardees (Oct 2024, $800M ceiling across awardees). Nuclear is small against GEV's Power, Wind and Electrification segments.
- Bull
- GE Vernova's GE Hitachi unit is the BWRX-300 SMR vendor, a Global Nuclear Fuel participant, and a DOE HALEU-deconversion awardee, giving listed exposure across two chokepoints.
- Bear
- Nuclear is small against GEV's much larger Power, Wind and Electrification segments, so the deconversion and fuel exposure barely moves consolidated earnings.
Centrus Energy Corp.
Operates the only NRC-licensed US HALEU cascade (16 centrifuges enriching to 19.75% at Piketon, Ohio), with cumulative HALEU output now above 1.6 metric tons. Reported Q1 2026 revenue of $76.7M and a $3.9B backlog extending to 2040; the DOE's January 2026 enrichment package included a Centrus task order of $900M (up to $1.07B with options) to expand Piketon, with first new capacity targeted for 2029. Uplisted from NYSE American to NYSE on Dec 4, 2025.
- Bull
- Centrus runs the only NRC-licensed US HALEU cascade, has a $3.9B backlog to 2040, and won a $900M DOE Piketon expansion, the sole enricher where the chokepoint touches earnings.
- Bear
- Most backlog is the legacy LEU trading book where Q1 SWU volume fell 47%, and domestic enrichment economics are a DOE-funded 2029+ story.
Solstice Advanced Materials Inc.
Spun off from Honeywell and trading on NASDAQ since October 30, 2025, Solstice operates Metropolis Works, the only domestic US UF6 conversion plant, marketed via the ConverDyn JV with General Atomics. 2026 output is guided above 10,000 tU UF6 against a >$2B backlog through 2030; nuclear revenue was ~$107M of $991M total Q1 2026 net sales (+27% YoY).
- Bull
- Solstice operates Metropolis Works, the only domestic US UF6 converter, with 2026 output guided above 10,000 tU against a >$2B backlog to 2030, owning a single-plant Western chokepoint.
- Bear
- Nuclear was only ~$107M of $991M Q1 net sales, so the conversion monopoly is diluted inside a much larger recently-spun-off advanced-materials business.
Uranium Energy Corp
In September 2025 UEC launched United States Uranium Refining & Conversion Corp (UR&C), a wholly owned subsidiary studying a ~10,000 tU/yr UF6 conversion plant (a substantial share of US ~18,000 tU/yr demand), building on a Fluor conceptual study begun July 2024. It is explicitly contingent on further studies, government commitments and regulatory approval.
- Bull
- UEC pairs South Texas/Wyoming ISR production with its new UR&C subsidiary studying a ~10,000 tU/yr UF6 conversion plant, a potential second US converter spanning two chokepoints.
- Bear
- The conversion plan is explicitly contingent on further studies, government commitments and approvals, and its ISR restart output remains small and high-cost option-quality cash.
Catalyst calendar
- 2026-07-31Cameco Q2 2026 resultsmediumCameco's fuel-services segment publishes the cleanest public read on Western UF6 conversion spot and long-term prices and Port Hope production progress.
- 2026-08-03BWX Technologies Q2 2026 resultsmediumReads any HALEU deconversion task-order activity at Nuclear Fuel Services, the strongest balance sheet on the deconversion bench of this chokepoint.
- 2026-09-02Solstice Advanced Materials Q2 2026 resultsmediumFirst read on Metropolis Works 2026 UF6 ramp toward >10,000 tU, the $2B backlog, and any Metropolis 2.0 expansion decision from the only US converter.
- 2026-09-09World Nuclear Symposium 2026, London (Sept 9-11)lowThe premier fuel-cycle forum where conversion supply-demand and the ConverDyn / Metropolis 2.0 and UEC UR&C capacity-build narratives get updated to the market.