Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said Wednesday that it expects an order worth about 5.2 billion dollars for two nuclear reactors from US power giant TXU, breaking new ground for a Japanese company. The two reactors, which have a power generation capacity of 1,700 megawatts, will be constructed once the Texas energy group formally receives permission from US authorities to import them, a spokesman for the Japanese group said.
The deal will make Mitsubishi Heavy the first Japanese company to export Japan-made reactors overseas without any third party involvement, he added.
Mitsubishi declined to give the exact value of the deal but said the catalogue price for the two was about 600 billion yen (5.17 billion dollars).
The heavy machinery manufacturer set up a wholly-owned US unit in July 2006 to market advanced pressurised-water reactors to US power companies.
The world market for nuclear power plants is expected to expand rapidly amid higher crude oil prices and calls for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
"Dozens of new nuclear plants are expected to be constructed in the United States by about 2030 as the importance of nuclear power generation is increasing against a backdrop of global warming and high crude oil prices," Mitsubishi said in a statement.
"Taking advantage of this order, our company will make a more active sales pitch to gain more contracts for our APWR from US power companies," it said.
With an eye on the growing US market, Japanese giant Toshiba Corp. last year bought US nuclear power plant maker Westinghouse for 5.4 billion dollars in one of Japan's largest overseas acquisitions in years.
Toshiba's rival Hitachi Ltd. has also teamed up with General Electric Co. to build nuclear power plants in the United States.
Source: Agence France-Presse
