Areva picks Idaho for uranium enrichment plant

LOS ANGELES, May 6 (Reuters) - Areva Inc, the U.S. unit of France's Areva Group (CEPFi.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) on Tuesday announced a site in Idaho for a $2 billion uranium enrichment plant to open in 2014.

Lucrative tax incentives of about $400 million offered by Idaho for the new plant helped Areva decide on Idaho rather than a proposed site in New Mexico, an Areva spokesman said.

The plant will be known as the Idaho Falls plant and is 18 miles from Idaho Falls, Idaho, near the Idaho National Laboratory, a federally run lab where nuclear energy work has been done for more than 50 years.

An Areva spokesman said about 1,000 workers will be hired during construction that is to start in 2011 and once the plant is running, the plant will employ about 250 engineers and technicians.

Areva Inc, based in Maryland in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., will apply for local and federal permits, including a license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to operate a uranium enrichment plant.

The plant will use advanced proven centrifuge technology developed by the Enrichment Technology Company, an Areva subsidiary.

Two other companies are already building centrifuge technology uranium enrichment plants in the United States -- European consortium Urenco's Louisiana Energy Services at a site in southeastern New Mexico and USEC Inc (USU.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), which is building a plant in Piketon, Ohio.

USEC already operates the only working U.S.-based uranium enrichment plant, which uses gaseous diffusion technology, in Paducah, Kentucky.

Areva Inc said the United States imports about 90 percent of the enriched uranium used in nuclear power plants, and more than half of that comes from Russia in a pact to expire in 2013.