Uranium Deal Powers Up Nuclear Fission Firm Oklo

Sam Altman’s company has finally solved its supply problem.

No, we’re not talking about OpenAI and its insatiable appetite for more compute. We’re talking about Oklo, the Altman-backed nuclear fission company, which has struck a multiyear purchasing agreement with Centrus Energy for domestic high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU), the difficult-to-source fuel for its new-age nuclear reactors.

Nuke Box Fever

Data center fever has nuclear fission companies adopting the same mindset: Solve the science and engineering feat of small modular reactors first, ask questions about uranium fuel supply later. With the technical side now all but cinched up, the supply question has been front and center. The problem? For years, commercial HALEU could only be sourced from China and Russia … not exactly the coziest of trade partners.

Still, the US needed data centers, and data centers needed clean energy, and nuclear energy required HALEU. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2024 directed the US Department of Energy to help the private sector kick-start commercial HALEU enrichment, and in January, Centrus secured a $900 million contract to do just that. Oklo is only one of the beneficiaries: 

• Centrus is set to supply enough HALEU fuel to power five of Oklo’s Aurora SMRs in a deal that starts in 2029. The company has also explored using recycled Cold War-era plutonium for its reactors, and CEO Jacob DeWitte once told Barron’s that sourcing fuel was one of its “biggest challenges.”
• In its press release on Thursday, Oklo said that some of the HALEU supply will be used to fuel the Aurora SMRs it is building in Pike County, Ohio, for a nearby Meta data center; the Instagram owner contracted Oklo for energy earlier this year.

HALEU Effect: Shares of Oklo jumped 4% on Thursday, while shares of Centrus Energy jumped more than 12% (note: The market was closed Friday in observance of the Juneteenth holiday). The radioactive glow-up spread across the sector. Uranium supplier Energy Fuels saw its share price jump more than 8%, while Oklo’s SMR rivals NuScale Power and NANO Nuclear Energy jumped 13% and 11%, respectively.

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