DOE seeks contractor for Piketon ATHENS, OH (WOUB) - The U.S. Department of Energy is now looking for a company to operate two depleted uranium hexafluoride conversion facilities in Portsmouth and Paducah, Kentucky.

The estimated value of the five-year contracts is $350 to $450 million.

The company would oversee conversion of D-O-E's inventory of depleted uranium to
a more stable chemical form acceptable for transportation, reuse, or disposal.

This inventory is the so-called legacy waste from uranium enrichment that started as part of atomic bomb development by the Manhattan Project during World War Two.

Since the 1950s, depleted uranium has been stored at Portsmouth and Paducah in large steel cylinders.

And cylinders formerly at Oak Ridge, Tennessee have been relocated to the Portsmouth site.

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