The United States Enrichment Corp. recently reported improved third quarter earnings compared to last year.

USEC had a net income of $9.9 million, or 11 cents per share, for the quarter which ended on Sept. 30. That is in contrast to a $5.2 million loss for the third quarter of 2005.

USEC also reported a net income of $66 million, or 76 cents a share, for the first nine months of the year. That is based $1.3 billion in revenue.

USEC leases the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Third quarter net income before American Centrifuge program expenses was $24 million.

The plan for USEC is to begin a new way of enriching uranium by the end of the decade through the program.

“Our third quarter was very solid as USEC's financial results continued to meet or exceed our projections for 2006,” USEC President and CEO John K. Welch said. “Looking more broadly, we still have much to accomplish during the fourth quarter, including our efforts to develop a revised cost and schedule estimate for the American Centrifuge plant.”

The company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this month that costs are running “significantly higher” than a previous estimate of $1.7 billion for the American Centrifuge program.

USEC said cost increases could make the project “uneconomic” and could jeopardize financing and deployment of the program.

Welch said preparations to begin testing the program are essentially complete.

In other USEC news, the company named Chillicothe resident Joe Deffenbaugh as its lead cascade operations and maintenance manager for the American Centrifuge program at Piketon.

Deffenbaugh has worked at the plant for 22 years as a production process operator, a first line manager, section manager and cascade controller.

He also was a supervisor in a previous centrifuge program.

JEFF BARRON can be reached at (740) 353-3101, ext. 236.