Orano USA, a Maryland-based subsidiary of a global nuclear fuel company, will invest billions of dollars to build a centrifuge uranium enrichment facility in Oak Ridge in the largest single investment in Tennessee history.

Though the investment total is unknown for the early stage project, state officials said it was the largest in Tennessee history, even bigger than the $5.6 billion Ford BlueOval campus outside Memphis.

The scope of the project is global. Orano, the France-based parent company of Orano USA, is a world leader in the nuclear fuel supply chain, from its uranium mines in Canada, Kazakhstan and Niger, to its methods of recycling used uranium fuel

Orano previously had plans to build a similar multibillion-dollar uranium enrichment plant in Idaho, but had to scrap the project after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan led to a collapse in the market