Eyeing the World Nuke Power Plant Market

Doosan Heavy is shipping nuclear reactors, steam boilers to U.S. power plants and is building 4 nuclear power plants in the UAE

Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction Co. is expected to expand the exports of its nuclear power plant equipment overseas with many large countries planning to build nuclear power plants including the United States, which recently signed contracts with Doosan Heavy to import a number of key components for its nuclear power plants. Doosan Heavy expects large increases in its exports of key nuclear power plant parts in the future including those for four nuclear power plants in the United Arab Emirates to be built by Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO), the first nuclear power plants to be exported from Korea.
Doosan Heavy, the only maker of key nuclear power plant components including steam boilers and nuclear reactors, shipped replacement nuclear reactor heads and control equipment to the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant in the United States from its plant in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province.
The shipment is the fourth one since the first shipment of nuclear power plant components to the United States in 1999, including steam generators. The fourth shipment included nuclear reactor heads and control equipment for the first time to the United States.
Nuclear reactor heads are installed on top of the reactors and control various parts in the power plant including maintaining the pressure inside the cooling material and keeping the reactors operating with electricity. The company will also supply 89 operation rods per reactor at the Palo Verde nuclear power plant.
The company got the order for those reactor heads and control rod equipment from Arizona Republic Services Co. for its Nos.1, 2 and 3 1,400Mw-class nuclear power plants in March 2006, and spent three years assembling the equipment with its own design and production technologies.
They were made with a new, rust-free material and are easy to install and safe, unlike the equipment made in the past, which had to be installed by welding.
Vice President Kim Tae-woo said the Palo Verde nuclear power plant is a Korean-style nuclear power plant, as Doosan Heavy took charge of all aspects of the plant’s renovation from designing to production including core equipment such as nuclear reactor heads and steam boilers, falling back on its experience producing nuclear power plant equipment stretching back for 30 years. Doosan will follow up with equipment for the Nos. 1 and 3 Palo Verde nuclear power plant reactors.
The company’s supply of nuclear power plant equipment to U.S. nuclear power plants during the past decade is as follows: The company supplied a steam generator to Sequoya No. 1 nuclear reactor from 1999 to 2002; supplied a replacement steam generator to the Watts Bar No. 1 nuclear power plant during 2002 and 2005; shipped replacement pressure equipment to No. 2 Ano nuclear power plant during 2005 and 2006; is in the process of producing replacement reactor covers for Entergy Nuclear Power Plant in the United States since receiving the order in May 2005; is producing replacement nuclear reactor covers and control rod operation equipment for Nos. 1, 2, and 3 nuclear power plants in Palo Verde since getting the order in June 2006; is producing the No.2 Sequoya nuclear power plant replacement steam generator; and is producing a new nuclear power plant AP1000 TM four steam generators and two nuclear reactors since it received the order in July 2008.
Doosan Heavy signed a contract with the Egyptian government on the supply and installation of equipment and facilities at the In Sokhna thermal power plant during a signing ceremony held in Cairo on Feb. 17. The ceremony was attended by Dr. Hassem Youris, Egyptian energy minister; Dr. Mohamad Awad, the chief of the Egyptian power authority; and Hwang Hae-jin, Vice President of Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction.
The In Sokhna thermal power plant, a 1,300 MW-class power station (650MW X 2 units), will be constructed in In Sokhna, about 150 km east of Cairo, the Egyptian capital. Doosan will conduct the project in a package deal, which will comprehensively entail the design, production and installation of two boilers for the power plant.
Suh Dong-soo, Executive Vice President (Head of the Power Plant BG), said, “Egypt is not a large electric power market compared with Saudi Arabia or India, but it is an attractive market, where we expect to see successive orders for 650MW-class oil boilers, the same size as the boilers that have been ordered this time.” He added, “By banking on the acquisition of the latest order, we will further step up our advance into the Egyptian power market.”
Doosan won four 350MW-class oil boilers to be installed at the Al Khalij power plant in Libya in December 2007. The company won the order for the 650MW-class oil boilers this time, gaining the upper hand in the oil boiler markets in the Middle East and North Africa.
Egypt, which is expected to see a 5 percent growth in annual power demand, will likely order boilers amounting to a collective volume of 2,000 MW per year. Doosan was set to participate in a project to build nuclear power plants in the United Arab Emirates as a member of the Korean consortium late last year, and won a $1.1 billion-project to build the Raipur coal-powered thermal power plant in the Raipur region of India in January, before successfully winning the large Egyptian project. As such, the company is expected to enjoy a steady rise in new orders from the Middle East and India again this year. nw

A steam boiler for nuclear power plant produced by Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction Co.