Under the agreement, the group will jointly pursue opportunities for Toshiba’s ABWR and Westinghouse AP1000 reactors in the kingdom. Toshiba and Shaw will provide design, engineering, procurement and construction while Exelon will provide operations and related services for the projects. In April, King Abdullah issued a royal order to establish the King Abdullah City for Nuclear and Renewable Energy to oversee all aspects of nuclear power in the kingdom.

John Watson said that the oil & gas industry has asked the US government to raise safety standards for offshore drilling in order to avoid another accident like the Deepwater Horizon. Watson said the company leads one of the two industry task forces that last week gave U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar a report with recommendations about the procedures that should be implemented and improved to avoid another massive accident. "The energy industry is learning a great deal," Watson said. "If there is something we need to adopt, we will adopt it."

The Olympic Dam mine will return to full operation by the end of June. South Australian Premier Mike Rann said he met with BHP CEO Marius Kloppers and was told the news. "After many many months of extraordinarily hard work by BHP Billiton and contractors ... BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam mine is heading back to full production," Rann told parliament. Metal production at the mine was cut by 75% after a shaft accident last October. In a separate statement, Kloppers said that the expansion of the mine remains on track but is facing a huge threat from the proposed resources super profits tax (RSPT). "At the moment, it is not frozen," said Kloppers of the Olympic Dam Expansion project. "We are carrying on. We are spending money, there are 200 engineers working on it. Otherwise we would have made a statement to the contrary." Kloppers, however, reiterated the mining company's stand against the RSPT, saying that the vast scale of the expansion was particularly threatened by the tax. "Projects with enormous risks and very long lead times towards positive cash flows - because you're doing upfront investments for many years - are most disadvantaged by this type of tax being contemplated," said Kloppers.

The company is part of the team lead by Mitsubishi Nuclear Energy Systems Inc., whose technology was selected for the design of a potential third nuclear reactor at Dominion’s Virginia power plant. Martin M. Koffel, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of URS, stated, “We are very pleased to be supporting Mitsubishi and Dominion on the North Anna Unit 3 project. URS is a leading provider of EPC services to the nuclear industry, having engineered or constructed 49 nuclear units around the world, including 24 of the 104 units now operating in the U.S., and extended the life and efficiency of over 100 units through major retrofit projects. We are well positioned for the anticipated renaissance in nuclear power, and we look forward to assisting Dominion and Mitsubishi on this project, if Dominion decides to build the new unit.”

Coreworx provides sophisticated project information management software to massive capital construction projects such as oil rigs, mining and nuclear power plants. Thanks to $50-billion (U.S.) in nuclear construction loan guarantees announced by the Obama administration recently, what’s expected to be a nuclear renaissance offers some interesting opportunities for Coreworx. “It gives a project manager a very easy way to manager the 6,000 things they have to do in any given day,” Mr. Shellhamer says. “There are an incredible number of design considerations and complex workflows. We give them the ability to consolidate and score, which gives the user a real-time view and predictability. Traditional software companies can take two years to customize software for a five-year large-scale project. We have the ability to build it in a month or two.

Toshiba will purchase a $100 million stake in USEC. B&W will match Toshiba’s investment of $100 million for a combined $200 million stake. Under the deal, Toshiba will receive rights to enriched uranium fuel for plants. "We have decided to make this investment in American know-how and American technology in order to produce more uranium fuel for the growing worldwide nuclear power market," Toshiba corporate senior vice president Yasuharu Igarashi said in a statement.

The EPC contract is for the Gladstone Liquefied Natural Gas project. “Fluor is honoured to be chosen to continue to help Santos with this pioneering energy project to convert coal seam gas from the Surat and Bowen basins in Queensland into LNG,” said Peter Oosterveer, president of Fluor’s Energy & Chemicals group.

An agreement has been reached for TEPCO to partner in the STP project. TEPCO is one of the world’s largest operators of nuclear plants and will invest $155 million through its US subsidiary for a 10% share in the STP project. TEPCO also will contribute to training the highly skilled workforce which will build and operate STP 3&4. “TEPCO has brought two advanced technology nuclear units online, on time and on budget and literally wrote the book on training the workforce for Advanced Boiler Water Reactor technology,” said David Crane, Chairman of the Board of NINA and President and CEO of NRG Energy. “Their ownership participation in STP will be invaluable to the technical and financial viability of the project and will help ensure that STP 3&4 is part of the vanguard of new advanced nuclear projects in the United States. The success of the coming American nuclear renaissance is essential if we are to meet our country’s zero emissions, zero carbon and energy security objectives.” Steve Winn, CEO of NINA stated “In addition to TEPCO’s expertise and investment, having the benefit of TEPCO’s investment grade credit rating in the ownership chain for the project improves the overall credit profile of the project. TEPCO will be instrumental in helping to secure Japanese financing support through Japan Bank for International Cooperation and Nippon Export and Investment Insurance.”

The company’s commercial nuclear operations received the American Society of Mechanical Engineers N-Stamp certifications. The certifications are considered the industry standard for quality assurance of materials, design, construction and continuing maintenance of nuclear facilities. The certification enables the company to perform the design, construction and supply of new pressure equipment for new and existing nuclear power plants. 

The company’s Offshore Solutions Unit has won a contract with Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Company for offshore facilities at the Umm Lulu field. The project is currently underway at Fluor’s Houston and Abu Dhabi offices. "This new FEED contract with ADMA-OPCO reinforces Fluor Offshore Solutions' strength in the offshore oil and gas sector in the Middle East," said Peter Oosterveer, Fluor's Energy & Chemicals president. "We have performed numerous projects for ADMA-OPCO for 35 years and this additional project demonstrates the excellent relationship we enjoy with ADNOC and its operating companies."

John Welch, USEC CEO, said the approximately two dozen AC100 centrifuge machines currently in the Lead Cascade testing program have operated well since the machines went into the commercial cascade configuration in March. “This is an important event for the program and our efforts to address DOE’s concerns because these are production-ready machines. Our immediate objective is to accumulate significant cascade run-time while we continue to manufacture and install additional AC100 machines,” he said. Welch also noted that the prospects for the nuclear power industry are improving as 57 reactors are currently under construction worldwide.

IIR is tracking 1168 active metals and mining projects in North America, with a total investment value of $223 billion. This includes $35 billion in projects that are scheduled to kick off in 2010, a 33% increase over the $26.2 billion in projects that kicked off in 2009. "The $223 billion in project spending for the North America Metals & Minerals business represents a big opportunity for equipment and service providers," said John Govreau, IIR VP of research for Metals & Minerals. “However, an even greater opportunity lies outside of North America: Latin America, Australia, Africa, and Asia all report strong growth in their respective Metals & Minerals businesses”. On a global basis, Industrial Info is tracking 2,351 active projects with a TIV of $839 billion.