AtkinsRéalis reports spending $1.3-billion on orders from its nuclear supply chain last year, and expects to spend a similar amount this year.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
AtkinsRéalis Group Inc. ATRL-T has signed agreements with eight suppliers it hopes will help build modernized versions of Candu nuclear power reactors in Ontario, the company announced Wednesday.
Formerly known as SNC-Lavalin, AtkinsRéalis has already worked with the eight companies over the last dozen years to refurbish six aging Candu reactors in Canada and around the world. It has contracts to refurbish 11 more reactors, and it also aims to build new Candus at Ontario’s Bruce Station on the eastern shore of Lake Huron, or at Wesleyville, a plant proposed by Ontario Power Generation in Port Hope.
The largest of AtkinsRéalis’s eight preferred suppliers is BWX Technologies, which has manufactured major components such as steam generators for Candu plants for decades. Others include precision machining company B.C. Instruments and industrial valve suppliers Celeros Flow Technology and Velan Inc.
Also included are construction company E.S. Fox Limited, Niagara Falls-based custom component manufacturer Niagara Energy Products, Senior Flexonics (which provides a wide range of components for the energy industrial and medical sectors) and NWI Precision, a maker of turbine shafts, pressure vessels and other components.
Joe St. Julian, head of AtkinsRéalis’s nuclear division, said that although the eight companies are not guaranteed additional contracts, as preferred suppliers they’ll likely be on a shorter list of bidders. The company plans to share more information about upcoming work with them than it would normally, in hopes of providing them sufficient confidence to invest in expanding their production capacity.
AtkinsRéalis reports spending $1.3-billion on orders from its nuclear supply chain last year, and expects to spend a similar amount this year. But it expects orders to surge in 2026 and remain elevated through 2030.
“We will end up buying somewhere in the neighbourhood of three-and-a-half billion dollars per year from the supply chain,” Mr. St. Julian predicted.
“It’s likely that their total book of work with us is going to grow exponentially over the next five to six years.”
But AtkinsRéalis can expect fierce competition from other reactor vendors for work on proposed nuclear power plants, particularly from Westinghouse (an American company owned by Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management Corp. and Cameco Corp.).
According to Mycle Schneider Consulting’s latest report on the global nuclear industry, as of last summer there were 59 reactors under construction worldwide. Nearly all of them (85 per cent) were in Asia or Eastern Europe. Not one was in North America, highlighting the low levels of activity on this continent.
Following an era of limited research and development activity, AtkinsRéalis now has a team of 300 employees developing a modernized Candu reactor called the Monark. Company executives say the 1,000-megawatt Monark will feature an updated version of the last Candu reactors built in Canada, at Darlington Nuclear Generating Station, a design that is now approximately four decades old. AtkinsRéalis says the Monark’s design should be complete by 2027.
Westinghouse markets a 1,200-megawatt reactor called the AP1000. Following an 11-year construction, an AP1000 known as Vogtle-4, in Georgia, was connected to the grid in March, 2024. That reactor and a sister unit, Vogtle-3, cost an estimated US$36-billion and suffered massive cost overruns and delays.
Westinghouse is also expanding its roster of Canadian partners. On Wednesday, the company announced a memorandum of understanding with Vancouver-based Worley Chemetics Inc., which could see that company design and manufacture carbon steel or alloy vessels and heat exchangers for Westinghouse reactors, including the AP1000.
AtkinsRéalis said it expects to sign more agreements with suppliers in this year’s second quarter.