Centrus Energy (LEU +7.31%), one of the few U.S. companies licensed to sell low-enriched uranium (LEU), saw its stock skyrocket more than 7,200% over the past decade. Let's see why this nuclear energy stock soared -- and where it might head over the next ten years.
Why did Centrus' stock soar?
The Fukushima disaster in 2011 disrupted nuclear energy growth for more than a decade, as more countries paused their nuclear power projects. Those headwinds curbed the market's demand for LEU, the fuel used in most commercial nuclear reactors.
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Centrus originally enriched its own LEU on a commercial scale at its U.S. plants, but it shut down those facilities in 2023 because it became cheaper to simply import enriched uranium. That year also marked the end of the "Megatons to Megawatts" program -- a deal between the U.S. and Russia that allowed enriched weapons materials from dismantled Russian warheads to be downblended into LEU and sold to middlemen resellers like Centrus.
Those changes, along with the decade-long drought in nuclear demand, reduced Centrus' revenue from $1.86 billion in 2012 to $193 million in 2018. Yet from 2018 to 2025, its revenue grew at a 13% CAGR to $449 million as several tailwinds kicked in.
NYSE: LEU
Key Data Points
The nuclear energy market stabilized as more countries launched new decarbonization initiatives, the power-hungry data center, cloud, and AI markets expanded, and more companies introduced safer, more efficient reactors to meet that demand. As the market expanded, Centrus began enriching its own high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU) for advanced reactors, which it sold in limited quantities through small-scale government contracts.
What will happen over the next ten years?
The world's nuclear capacity could expand by up to 2.6 times from 2024 to 2050, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The HALEU market should also grow much faster than the broader LEU market.
At the end of 2025, Centrus had a total backlog of $3.8 billion extending through 2040. From 2025 to 2028, analysts expect its revenue and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) to grow at CAGRs of 5% and 22%, respectively. However, its stock isn't a screaming bargain at nine times this year's sales.
If Centrus matches Wall Street's estimates, grows its revenue at a 5% CAGR through 2036, but trades at a more reasonable five times sales by the final year, its stock would actually decline 5% over the next ten years. So while the nuclear market's recent expansion drove Centrus' stock higher over the past decade, it could struggle to maintain that momentum.
