Centrus and Doosan sign advanced reactor MoU

18 September 2018

Centrus Energy Corp of the USA and Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction Co Ltd of South Korea yesterday announced a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to explore cooperation in supplying the advanced reactor market.

Metal being machined at Centrus' Technology and Manufacturing Centre in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where manufacturing work for Doosan would take place (Image: Centrus)

This will include opportunities in providing manufacturing, engineering and technical services and goods to the nuclear industry as well as the advanced technologies that will be used in the next generation of commercial nuclear reactors. In particular, they want to pursue cooperation in developing the next generation of nuclear reactors, which will require advanced engineering capabilities and innovative fuel designs.

Centrus, the Bethesda, Maryland-based nuclear fuel and services supplier, offers turnkey engineering and advanced manufacturing solutions, and is also working on "next generation" centrifuge technologies. In March it signed a services contract with X-energy, LLC to support the design of a facility to produce X-energy's uranium oxycarbide tristructural isotropic (Triso) advanced nuclear fuel.

Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction is an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor offering services ranging from the manufacture of castings and forgings, power generation systems and desalination facilities to the construction of power plants. The Changwon-based company manufactures and installs various plant components, including steam turbines, hydraulic turbines, condensers and heat exchangers. It fabricated the reactor pressure vessels and steam generators for the Vogtle 3 and 4 AP1000 reactors currently under construction in Georgia, USA and has also supported reactor construction projects in China, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates.

The MoU establishes a framework for the two companies to explore a range of commercial initiatives that would take advantage of their "unique" capabilities, expertise and customer relationships, they said.

Daniel Poneman, Centrus president and CEO, said: "With unique and complementary technical capabilities, we believe there could be mutually beneficial opportunities for our companies to work together worldwide and win new business."

Researched and written by World Nuclear News