Joint venture to produce HALEU in South Africa

A binding Heads of Agreement has been signed by the companies, establishing a commercial framework for a joint venture of which Quantum Leap Energy will own around 80% and Necsa will own around 20%. Quantum Leap Energy will lead operations and the arrangement of capital, while Necsa will contribute site access, nuclear safeguards support, and licensing and regulatory support. The parties also intend for Necsa to enter an engineering, procurement and construction arrangement with Quantum Leap Energy, giving the project direct access to Necsa's engineering capabilities, ASP Isotopes (ASPI) said.

ASPI traces its origins back to the South African uranium enrichment programme of the 1980s, and uses two proprietary isotope enrichment processes: the Aerodynamic Separation Process, which uses an aerodynamic technique and is most suitable to separate gases with lower atomic masses; and the Quantum Enrichment advanced isotope enrichment technique, which uses lasers to selectively ionise and separate isotopes with high precision. Quantum Leap Energy has the exclusive global rights to those technologies, and focuses on uranium conversion, enrichment of uranium-235 for nuclear fuel production, and isotopic separation of lithium-6 and lithium-7, as well as radioactive waste treatment technologies. 

The latest agreement builds on a Memorandum of Understanding signed in November 2024 and a Pre-Implementation Services Contract, signed in February this year.

In July, Quantum Leap Energy received approval from South Africa's Ministry of Electricity and Energy to acquire, possess, use, dispose of and transport source material and nuclear-related equipment and technology to advance uranium enrichment activities at Pelindaba. Work is already under way to refurbish the infrastructure housing a previous test bench facility at Pelindaba, and engagements with "relevant authorities" have begun, ASPI said. 

Quantum Leap Energy has already secured offtake for the joint venture's expected production of high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU, through supply agreements with advanced nuclear reactor developer TerraPower, the company added. It has also previously reached an agreement with Fermi America to look into the development of a facility to produce HALEU using laser-based isotope separation technology in Texas. HALEU contains between 5% and 20% of fissile uranium-235 - a higher enrichment than that found in typical uranium fuel used in today's operating commercial reactors, which contains between 3.5% and 5% U-235.

"The world needs new, reliable and secure sources of advanced nuclear fuel, and South Africa is well placed to provide them," said Loyiso Tyabashe, CEO of Necsa. "Through this partnership with Quantum Leap Energy, Necsa will bring its decades of experience in nuclear operations, safeguards and regulatory compliance to creating a trusted new source of commercial HALEU supply."

"This agreement demonstrates real commercial progress and brings us one step closer to enrichment," Quantum Leap Energy CEO Ryno Pretorius said. "We are proud to be working alongside Necsa, whose nuclear site, infrastructure and expertise no other partner could replicate. With offtake from TerraPower already in place, we are positioned to deliver the HALEU that will fuel the next generation of nuclear reactors."

Pelindaba, around 30 km west of Pretoria, is Nesca's main nuclear research centre and is home to the 20 MW SAFARI-1 research reactor. Quantum Leap Energy said it believes that combining its proprietary enrichment technology with Necsa's established nuclear platform offers a highly efficient route to commercial production of HALEU.