China building four new nuclear plants

Shares of The Shaw Group (NYSE: SGR) were up almost 14% today on news that the company, along with Toshiba's Westinghouse Electric Co., have been selected to build four new nuclear plants in China.

The People’s Republic of China’s State Nuclear Power Technology Company (SNPTC) has selected the Westinghouse/Shaw Consortium and Westinghouse’s AP1000 passive Generation III technology as the basis for four new nuclear power plants. The program is expected to begin in early 2007.

J.M. Bernhard, Jr., Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Shaw, said, “These first four “next generation” units will provide a sustainable source of critically needed power generation for the citizens and the government of the People’s Republic of China ... This project also represents the beginning of a major construction program for China to add at least 20,000 megawatts of nuclear power over the next 15 years.”

As part of the AP1000 Consortium, Shaw will provide engineering, procurement, commissioning, and management services for the four Chinese nuclear generation units. The projects are expected to spur significant economic opportunity in China, as well as in the United States with some 5,000 skilled engineering jobs being created in Shaw offices in Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina and Louisiana as a result, the company said.

Shaw is a pioneer in the nuclear services industry and has a long-standing relationship with its partner, Westinghouse, of which it owns 20%.

Shaw and Westinghouse collaborated to build the first commercial nuclear generating plant in the United States at Shippingport, Pennsylvania in the 1950s.

Shaw has performed as architect-engineer on 17 domestic nuclear units and is presently completing the construction restart of Tennessee Valley Authority’s Browns Ferry Unit #1 in Alabama, the largest nuclear construction project currently underway in the western hemisphere.

Westinghouse's AP1000 technology obtained design certification from the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission and is the current technology selection for at least 12 proposed new units in the United States. The two companies are say they're working closely to support this proposed growth in the domestic nuclear power sector.

Westinghouse Electric Company is a leading supplier of nuclear plant products and technologies to utilities throughout the world. Today, Westinghouse technology forms the basis for approximately one-half of the world’s operating nuclear plants.

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