A merger of McDermott International and CB&I, the majority partner in the contractor building a plutonium-conversion plant for the Department of Energy, is expected to close May 10 after shareholders for both companies approved the combination.
That is according to a joint press release Wednesday from the companies. McDermott shareholders would end up owning 53 percent shares in the combined company, which will carry the McDermott name.
The companies announced the proposed takeover in December, and secured U.S. antitrust approval in January. The combined company would be led by McDermott President and CEO David Dickson and have a combined annual revenue of about $10 billion, with a roughly $14.5-billion backlog.
CB&I is the lead partner on CB&I AREVA MOX Services, the prime contractor on the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) under construction at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. The plant, which the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) wants to cancel, is designed to turn 34 metric tons of weapon-usable plutonium into commercial reactor fuel as part of an arms-control pact with Russia finalized in 2010.
In 2016, the year the MFFF was supposed to come online, MOX Services sued the NNSA in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, alleging the agency’s bad-faith mismanagement of the contract put the facility more than 10 years behind schedule and at least $5 billion over budget. The NNSA claims MOX Services failed to deliver what the agency paid for under the contract awarded in 1999 to a predecessor company.
