Oklo Locks In Nuclear Fuel for Its Ohio Power Campus — With Meta's Money Behind It
A multi-year deal with Centrus Energy secures the specialized uranium fuel for up to five of Oklo's Aurora reactors, with deliveries starting in 2029.
Oklo has solved one of the hardest problems facing any advanced nuclear startup: where the fuel comes from. The company announced on Thursday that it has signed multiple definitive, multi-year contracts with Centrus Energy for high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU — the specialized fuel its Aurora reactors are designed to burn.
The agreements, announced via Business Wire, formalize a letter of intent the two companies signed in June. Under the deals, Oklo will make prepayments for future HALEU deliveries, and that money will help fund construction of new U.S. uranium enrichment capacity at Centrus's American Centrifuge Plant in Pike County, Ohio. Fuel deliveries are scheduled to begin in 2029.
Enough fuel for five reactors
The contracts cover enough HALEU to power up to five Aurora powerhouses for multiple years, according to the announcement. That fuel is earmarked for the first phase of Oklo's planned 1.2-gigawatt power campus in Ohio, for future Aurora deployments, and for later refueling of the company's first Aurora unit in Idaho.
The Ohio campus is the centerpiece — and Meta is central to it. The fuel purchase is backed by Meta's prepayment for future Oklo power production, under a previously announced agreement tying the advance payment to project progress. With that funding, Oklo can move ahead on fuel procurement, expand Ohio's clean-energy workforce, and generate new local and state tax revenue.
The three-way linkage runs through Ohio: Centrus's enrichment expansion in Piketon, Oklo's planned reactors, and Meta's commitment to new electricity and jobs for its Ohio operations. At full buildout, the effort is expected to support thousands of direct and indirect jobs, according to the companies.
Beyond the first reactor
For Oklo, the deal marks a step from single-reactor developer toward a power business at scale. Its first Aurora powerhouse in Idaho runs on recovered fuel from the Experimental Breeder Reactor II, allocated by the Department of Energy. The Centrus contracts give it a domestic commercial fuel supply for everything after that.
Oklo chief executive Jacob DeWitte said securing fuel is essential to growing the power business beyond the Idaho reactor. Centrus chief executive Amir Vexler said the prepayments will help fund the buildout of its centrifuge technology for commercial production.
Centrus says it has now secured $5.4 billion in customer contracts and commitments to buy low-enriched and high-assay uranium from its new capacity. The company recently completed and began shipping its first new centrifuge as part of its domestic enrichment expansion, and says it has assembled a complete supply chain to serve both commercial and national-security markets.
Both companies cautioned that the plans involve forward-looking statements and the usual risks — project schedules, licensing, capital requirements, and government demand among them. But if the fuel arrives on schedule in 2029, Oklo's Ohio campus will have cleared one of the biggest hurdles between an advanced-reactor design and a working power plant.
Written by the BidAsk Newsroom. Based on reporting from the sources below.
