Enusa

Introduction

Enusa (now Enusa Industrias Avanzadas SA), is a Spanish state-owned company, set up in 1972, to take over all of the nuclear front-end activities. ^{[1] (http://www.nuclearspin.org/index.php/Enusa#endnote_wna)}

Enusa supplies enriched uranium to the 9 Spanish nuclear reactors. The 1600 tonnes of uranium used each year in Spain is imported. In accordance with an agreement with the Spanish electric utilities, Enusa acts as a pool for uranium purchases. Enusa acquires the concentrates and the conversion and enrichment services, and it undertakes the logistic activities required to deliver the enriched uranium to the Spanish reactors.

Enusa originally had its own mining operations in Spain, but in 2001 it stopped producing uranium concentrates in the Saelices-Ciudad Rodrigo mines. It now has a 10% stake in Cominak, a mining company in Niger. ^{[2] (http://www.nuclearspin.org/index.php/Enusa#endnote_enusa)} There are no conversion or enrichment facilities in Spain, but Enusa owns 11% of Eurodif, with a large diffusion enrichment plant at Marcoule in France. It also contracts for other conversion and enrichment services abroad.

Enusa's Juzbado plant, commissioned in 1985, produces BWR and PWR fuel elements for Spain's reactors and also supplies other customers in Europe.

Nuclear lobbying

Enusa is a member of the Spanish Nuclear Forum ^{[3] (http://www.nuclearspin.org/index.php/Enusa#endnote_span)} and the European Atomic Forum (Foratom)

References

1. ^Nuclear power in Spain (http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf85.html), World Nuclear Association Briefing, May 2006.
2. ^Enusa website (http://www.enusa.es/eng/quienesomos.htm), accessed April 2007.
3. ^ Spanish Nuclear Forum website (http://www.foronuclear.org/en/acceso_socios.jsp), accessed April 2007.