Fluor executives said Friday they are pleased with progress being made on both the business and the regulatory front by small modular reactor developer NuScale, in which Texas-based Fluor remains a majority stakeholder.
In September NuScale signed a deal to start development of the first small modular reactor (SMR) in Poland and next year will start looking for a project site, Fluor Chair and CEO David Constable said in a quarterly earnings call with Wall Street analysts Friday.
The first SMR could be developed for a Polish producer of silver and copper by 2029, NuScale has said.
Last month a Nuclear Regulatory Commission advisory committee on reactor safeguards agreed to NuScale’s methods for determining SMR emergency planning zones. Full-size reactors must account for emergency planning for a radius of up to 50 miles.
The smaller planning zones “will open up a wider variety of potential sites for NuScale plant locations including for example coal-fired plants scheduled for decommissioning,” Constable said.
In August the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it would approve NuScale’s SMR design.
Although NuScale went public in May, being traded on the New York Stock Exchange, Constable said Fluor remains the top stockholder at 57%. This represents 126.4 million shares, according to the earnings presentation. Fluor officials said the long-term plan is to gradually decrease this ownership stake to 20-to-25%.
