From: 2theadvocate.com
The Shaw Group landed one of the biggest construction contracts in its history Thursday when the U.S. Department of Energy awarded Shaw $2 billion in nuclear fuel work at a South Carolina facility.
The award came in a contract modification to construction work Shaw and AREVA Group, of Paris, had already begun in August on a facility that will modify plutonium. Once destined for nuclear weapons, the plutonium will be converted for use by nuclear power plants.
Shaw owns 70 percent and AREVA 30 percent of the joint venture. In 1999, the Department of Energy hired them to design, license and ultimately build the mixed-oxide fuel facility.
In a statement, Shaw Chairman Jim Bernhard described the project as an important step in turning the nation’s surplus plutonium stockpile into useable electricity.
“The Shaw AREVA team will use its experience and highly skilled nuclear workforce to construct a facility that will dispose of at least 34 metric tons of plutonium,” Bernhard said.
The Savannah River site near Aiken, S.C., will remove impurities from surplus weapons-grade plutonium and mix it with uranium oxide to form mixed-oxide fuel pellets for use in commercial nuclear power reactors.
The Energy Department project developed as the United States and Russia reached a nonproliferation agreement in 2000 that reduced the need for weapons-grade plutonium.
By late 2007, Shaw and AREVA had 1,000 construction workers on-site at Aiken doing early building work in a project that will tax Shaw’s manpower. The modified contract brings Shaw’s construction backlog to about $16 billion.
Bernhard recently said the ability to convert backlog to profit “is our No. 1 challenge.” The company typically runs through about 40 percent to 45 percent of its backlog in a year, but the backlog has been growing continually, along with Shaw’s hiring.
The total value of the mixed-oxide project in South Carolina is expected to approach $4 billion, with Shaw sharing in 70 percent of the revenue through its joint venture with AREVA, a nuclear power specialist that generates more than $14 billion in revenue a year and is one of the top three companies in the world engaged in electricity transmission projects. AREVA already produces mixed-oxide fuel for more than 30 nuclear reactors worldwide, said Shaw spokesman Sean Clancy.
AREVA brought that technology to the joint venture while Shaw brought the ability to design, license and build large nuclear facilities, he said.
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