Happy Tuesday.
The build this week: America's nuclear fuel supply chain marked two firsts in four days. Urenco filled the first commercial cylinder of a higher-enriched fuel called LEU+ at its plant in Eunice, New Mexico, and Centrus shipped the first new centrifuge from its Oak Ridge, Tennessee, factory to its enrichment plant in Piketon, Ohio.
Underneath: Hanwha was picked to build the Navy's first Medium Landing Ship at Philly Shipyard, the Pentagon signed a $450 million conditional loan commitment with Neros to build drones at scale, Walmart committed about $6 billion to warehouse automation from Symbotic, and Marvell agreed to buy Lumentum.
| S&P 500 (SPY proxy) | $752.10 | ▼ 0.48% |
| Semiconductors (SMH) | $508.31 | ▼ 2.71% |
| Aerospace & Defense (ITA) | $214.68 | ▲ 2.36% |
| Centrus Energy (LEU) | $94.90 | ▼ 8.12% |
| Cameco (CCJ) | $73.38 | ▼ 4.59% |
| Huntington Ingalls (HII) | $313.70 | ▼ 1.00% |
The Lead
The big picture: Uranium has to be enriched before it can fuel a reactor, which means raising the share of U-235, the isotope that splits, from under 1% in nature to the 3% to 5% most American reactors burn. Only one commercial-scale plant in the country does that work: Urenco's National Enrichment Facility in Eunice, New Mexico, which can meet about a third of U.S. demand. Fuel enriched a step further, to between 5% and 10%, is called LEU+. It lets today's reactors run longer between refueling outages, and several advanced reactor designs in development plan to use it.
Driving the news: On Monday Urenco said Eunice had filled its first product cylinder of LEU+, the first commercial production of the fuel in the Western world. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission cleared the plant to enrich up to 10% in September 2025, and every centrifuge cascade on the site is licensed to make it. Four days earlier, Centrus Energy shipped the first new centrifuge built at its Oak Ridge plant to Piketon, where the machines will be grouped into cascades for a multibillion-dollar expansion of its enrichment capacity. Centrus hit that milestone ahead of its year-end target.
Why it matters: The jobs and spending are spread across three states. Eunice already has more than 500 employees and long-term contractors, and Urenco plans to lift the site's capacity past 7 million separative work units, the industry's measure of enrichment output, over the next decade. In Oak Ridge, Centrus is putting $560 million into turning its center into a high-rate factory for thousands of centrifuges, a project the city's mayor tied to nearly 430 new jobs. To feed it, Centrus has ordered tens of thousands of parts from American manufacturers and in October bought Westerman, a supplier of centrifuge casings. LEU+ also helps the next fuel down the line, because it can serve as feedstock for the high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU, that many advanced reactors need.
What's next: Centrus expects its first new capacity to come online in Piketon in 2029. Urenco will start building a new enrichment plant in Eunice that same year, with its first cascades producing in 2032 and more installed through 2036. On Friday the NRC also finalized a rule that sets deadlines of six, 12 or 18 months for contested licensing hearings, depending on the type of case, which takes effect 30 days after it is published.
Defense & Space
Lockheed Martin won the Army's Future Interceptor competition with its PAC-3 Edge missile under a cost-shared deal worth about $1.08 billion, with Lockheed paying about $423 million, testing starting in 2027 and fielding targeted for 2031.
Bell Textron received a $114.7 million Navy contract option to upgrade power and structures on Marine Corps AH-1Z and UH-1Y helicopters, with most of the work in Fort Worth and Amarillo, Texas, through June 2028.
Oshkosh Defense teamed with California startup Grid Aero to scale production of Grid Aero's Lifter cargo drone, starting with a pilot line in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, about a year out and aiming for hundreds, if not thousands, of aircraft by the early 2030s.
AEVEX won two Navy mine countermeasure contracts worth $41.6 million for payloads that hunt mines and then reacquire and neutralize them, adding to the 325 GARC unmanned boats it has already delivered to the Navy.
Maritime & Shipbuilding
Hanwha Philly Shipyard was selected to build the Navy's first Medium Landing Ship for $269 million by TOTE Services, the Navy's construction manager for the program, with options for three more, construction starting in late 2027 and first delivery in 2030.
Hanwha named Hyuk Kim president of Philly Shipyard to lead its capacity and workforce expansion as the yard moves into Navy work.
Huntington Ingalls raised its 2026 shipbuilding revenue forecast to $10.5 billion to $10.7 billion, as Newport News Shipbuilding's quarterly revenue rose 18% to $1.9 billion on submarine and carrier work.
BAE Systems won a $66.5 million Navy contract to dock, repair and modernize the littoral combat ship USS St. Louis in Mayport, Florida, through December 2027.
Eastern Shipbuilding Group will build the third of three hybrid-electric ferries for Washington State Ferries in Panama City, Florida, now that the state has ordered its propulsion system, with deliveries running from 2030 to 2032.
Derecktor Shipyards will build a 150-passenger catamaran ferry for Georgia's Sapelo Island at its yard in Dania Beach, Florida, with work starting before the end of the year.
Manufacturing & Automation
MAT Industries will add 85 jobs and a new production line at its air compressor and air brake tank plant in Jackson, Tennessee, on top of the 30 jobs it announced there last year.
Tronix3D will invest nearly $4 million and add 47 jobs in Pittsburgh, tripling its 3D printing floor space to 12,000 square feet for defense and robotics customers.
Hwasung Group will open a $5 million, 32-job plant in Florence County, South Carolina, making parts for elevators, escalators, power distribution and industrial equipment, with the first phase online in January 2027.
Wolfspeed signed a multi-year deal to supply silicon carbide chips to BorgWarner for its next 800-volt electric vehicle inverters, as Wolfspeed's U.S. production finishes its move to 200mm wafers.
Energy & Materials
Xcel Energy lifted its five-year capital plan to $70 billion for 9.2 gigawatts of renewables, 3.3 gigawatts of gas, 2.3 gigawatts of storage and 2,400 miles of transmission.
The NRC finished its final safety review of Dow and X-energy's Long Mott project, four small reactors in Seadrift, Texas, with 320 megawatts of electric capacity that will supply power and steam to Dow's chemical plant.
The Energy Department opened a funding call for about $237 million to help U.S. companies refurbish grid equipment and source alternative materials and subcomponents at home.
Meta agreed to buy environmental attribute certificates for about 200,000 tons of cement from Fortera, backing its roughly $150 million low-carbon cement plant in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, which aims to open in 2028.
Supply Chain & Freight
Walmart made an initial commitment of about $6 billion to Symbotic automation at 25 regional distribution centers, plus $125 million for research on racking and picking systems.
Schneider National picked Norfolk Southern to carry its eastern intermodal containers, moving the business from CSX starting in December, with full service targeted for January 1, 2027.
Heniff Transportation is building a rail transload terminal for Cargill near Jeffersonville, Ohio, linking sweetener shipments to the Indiana & Ohio Railway, with construction starting before year-end.
Dealbook
Neros signed a $450 million conditional loan commitment with the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital, which with $165 million of its own equity funds a $615 million push toward 1 million drones a year by 2028.
Marvell agreed to buy Lumentum in an all-stock deal at an implied enterprise value of about $115 billion, adding Lumentum's indium phosphide manufacturing to its data center chips, with closing expected in the first half of 2028.
Northwood Space raised a $375 million Series C at a $2 billion valuation, co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and DFJ Growth, to build more of its ground antennas that link satellites to Earth.
Salesforce agreed to buy defense logistics startup Rune Technologies in a deal reported at $375 million, adding military supply forecasting to its defense software.
Kewaunee Scientific agreed to buy Nycom for a $55 million base price, joining the Statesville, North Carolina, lab furniture maker with the Midlothian, Virginia, lab installer.
Hull Street Energy closed its purchase of FirstLight's U.S. power fleet, nearly 1,400 megawatts led by the Northfield Mountain pumped storage plant in Massachusetts.
Platinum Equity bought Warren Valve, a Houston maker of engineered flow-control valves for pipelines, utilities and refineries, from Allied Group.
Back Thursday.
