4Mês·

Centrus Energy as the sole supplier of HALEU fuel (SMRs)

Hello, everyone. While researching SMRs, I $LEU (-4,49%) .

$LEU (-4,49%) is the only Western supplier of HALEU fuel. Otherwise, you can probably only get it from TENEX in Russia.

SMRs are supposed to run on it. Personally, I don’t buy into the SMR narrative for data centers (energy is needed today, not in 2030; planning risks; permits; electricity costs), but I certainly see these things having a place in the long term.

Has anyone here ever worked with $LEU (-4,49%) or have an opinion on this?

Most recently, the annual forecast was raised

https://investors.centrusenergy.com/news-releases/news-release-details/centrus-reports-first-quarter-2026-results

A solid backlog of $3.9 billion through 2040.

investors.centrusenergy.comAccess Denied

8 Comentários

Raketentoni@Raketentoni

4Mês

Hey @Keineui,

Cool story about the SMRs and the HALEU monopoly! Geopolitically, the narrative is absolutely watertight. But we need to briefly separate the fantastic story from the raw numbers here, before FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) kicks in for some of you.

You’re celebrating the “solid backlog of $3.9 billion.” At first glance, that sounds like a massive cash tsunami. But did you actually read the sentence all the way through?

It says: **“...by 2040.”**
It’s now mid-2026. If we take those gigantic $3.9 billion out of fantasy land and stoically spread them over the next 14 years, that works out to an average of just under **$280 million in revenue per year** trickling through the pipeline. For a company that’s currently being touted here with absolute billion-dollar fantasies and as *the* savior of Western energy supply, that’s not rocket fuel—it’s more like a solid garden hose.

You’ve already pinpointed the sore spot yourself:
All the tech giants are building their AI data centers *today*. They need the electricity *now*. It will take a whole decade full of planning risks before these SMRs have gone through all the regulatory hell and are actually burning HALEU fuel in series production.

**My cold, hard conclusion:**

This is a prime example of the category: **The story is light-years bigger than the bare numbers.** Anyone looking to place a political bet on the year 2035 is welcome to add this stock to their portfolio. Anyone who prefers companies that are *right now* making real money and growing should stay stoically on the sidelines and let this one fly by without getting involved.

Raketentoni

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Keineui@Keineui

4Mês

@Raketentoni Yes, I don’t see that happening for data centers right now either. But: Quantum computing won’t arrive until 2030 or later, and it will require an enormous amount more energy than today’s GPU data centers (which still need to be deployed). Electrification is also advancing in general. That’s why I do believe that SMRs will be indispensable in the future. But yes, we can also wait another three years and see how things play out. Especially since there are no dividends to make the wait any shorter.
Edit: As always, thanks for the discussion!

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Raketentoni@Raketentoni

4Mês

@Keineui You know I like reasonable discussions, and they're important. But if they get political or someone tries to influence others in a negative way, I'm out 😬

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Stocktective@Stocktective

4Mês

Yes, I have. What do you think? Would you prefer to go in for the short term or the long term? Have you looked into this in more detail yet?

I’d say it’s not really suitable as a long-term investment; they’re currently spending a lot of money to expand operations (CapEx).
The stock is heavily tied to the HALEU theme in the market, but that’s not really the case right now. From a purely niche perspective, Centrus is actually a solid company because they do enrichment. They also enrich standard LEU, which is used in conventional reactors—and there are positive long-term contracts in place for that.

However, the stock has been priced based on the HALEU theme for some time now, and massive investments are being made to build on and expand this. Personally, I think SMRs are still far too far off; it will be several years before anything commercial comes of it.

If you want to place a small bet here, you could do so, but you have to pay very close attention to the key metrics due to the cyclical nature of the revenue and see how they develop.

Nevertheless, Centrus is also somewhat subject to the price of uranium, even if that cost is passed on; but if demand drops, they suffer as well. The political risks are quite high; the cost-intensive expansion is, of course, subject to execution risks as always—everything is damn expensive and heavily regulated. On top of that, you get no dividends and have negative FCF.

I’d say, if you can picture the “perfect story” that’s sometimes priced in more, sometimes less:

Operational expansion succeeds -> Politicians wave everything through for years -> Russia really stays out of it, Asia doesn’t interfere -> SMR theory really takes off, and relatively quickly, and the nuclear future fantasies in the conservative sector are also preserved or grow...

Then you could have a solid bet with high upside potential; if something doesn’t work out or drags on—then you just have a hyped-up company that could run into trouble.

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Keineui@Keineui

4Mês

@Stocktective Thanks for your take on this. Is there really that much hype surrounding it? The stock price seems to suggest otherwise. As for your question: if it happens, it will only be in the long term. As I mentioned, I don’t see a turnaround for SMRs happening before 2030.

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Stocktective@Stocktective

4Mês

@Keineui Saying it’ll happen before 2030 would be super optimistic; I don’t think anything will really happen before 2040 either.

Well, I got in a while back at 58 euros, and then it shot up to just under 400 euros in no time—that had nothing to do with fundamentals, if you ask me.
Of course, it could be that all the HALEU hype has already faded by now and the market has realized what the reality will/could look like.

There’s still a lot of risk involved here, with cash flow that’s not really predictable, in a highly regulated sector.

Of course, this is just my view; it’s possible I’ve overlooked certain things, in which case I’d be happy to learn more.

What do you see for long-term investing? Just the HALEU angle with the SMRs?

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Keineui@Keineui

4Mês

@Stocktective I just wanted to get some opinions on the stock. I don’t really have a strong opinion on it myself, and I certainly won’t be investing. But I find the story about HALEU through 2030+ interesting. That’s all. If there were a dividend, I might speculate. Otherwise, probably not.

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Stocktective@Stocktective

4Mês

@Keineui Oh, I see 👍 I think the story is driving the price too; if things turn out differently than expected, things might look bleak.

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