Mitsubishi Heavy Industries targets $6.25 Billion by 2020

JAPAN - Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Limited (MHI) has formulated plans to increase earnings from the company's nuclear division by 50% during the next decade.

The firm plans to achieve its $6.25 billion target through growth across all business units comprising construction of new nuclear plants, after-sales service and nuclear fuel supply, including its recent joint venture with Areva SA for fuel fabrication.

Along with MHI, Mitsubishi Corporation and Mitsubishi Materials Corporation entered into a joint venture with Areva to establish a new company to handle fuel fabrication services, including uranium reconversion. The new company, formed in April of this year, will be built by restructuring Mitsubishi Nuclear Fuel Company Limited and will primarily supply the Japanese market with uranium fuel assemblies specific to boiling water reactors, pressurized water reactors and high-temperature, gas-cooled reactors in addition to producing uranium-plutonium mixed oxide fuel assemblies.

The joint venture entity, 35% of which is owned by MHI, 30% by Mitsubishi Materials, 30% by Areva and 5% by Mitsubishi Corporation, also plans to market pressurized water reactor fuel assemblies designed by MHI in the international markets. The stakeholders are also planning to set up another fuel fabrication unit in the U.S.

MHI expects about 130 nuclear reactors to be developed worldwide, excluding China, by 2030. During the same period, the company also hopes to achieve an average sales target of two nuclear reactors each year. These projected numbers pertaining to new ventures do not include the Chinese markets, which according to MHI are expected to use locally manufactured reactors. However, MHI does not rule out the possibility of supplying turbines and other reactor components to China.

MHI is a global supplier of nuclear plant equipment, including new and replacement components in a various range of sizes. The company specializes in the production of steam turbines and steam generators, reactor pressure vessels and vessel heads, and reactor coolant pumps.

The company's product line also includes a range of indigenous nuclear power plants such as the 1,538-megawatt (MW) advanced pressurized water reactor and its larger U.S. variant, the 1,700-MW U.S.-APWR. In a 50% partnership with Areva, MHI has also developed another reactor, the Atmea — a 1,100-MW pressurized water reactor, which is suitable for countries with small power transmission grids.

MHI has already acquired contracts for building two 1,538-MW advanced pressurized water reactors in Tsuruga, Japan, for Japan Atomic Power Company. In the U.S., Energy Future Holdings Corporation (EFH) is setting up two nuclear power plants at the Comanche Peak nuclear power station in Texas based on the US-APWR model. EFH, a private company, was formerly TXU Corporation prior to its acquisition by a group of investors led by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners in October 2007.