Cape Town(IANS) : US based nuclear technology group Westinghouse Electric Company has acquired the South African IST Nuclear firm, South African news agency BuaNews reported Wednesday.
Westinghouse opened its South African operation Monday under the name Westinghouse Electric South Africa. The value of the transaction has not been disclosed.
IST Nuclear is a leading provider of services and systems to South Africa’s Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) project.
“Westinghouse has long been a proponent of the PBMR, and this acquisition will allow us to become even more involved as PBMR moves toward commercialisation,” Nick Liparulo, Vice-President of engineering services for Westinghouse, said in a statement.
At the same time, Westinghouse views South Africa as a promising market for its particular brand of nuclear power plant, a third-generation pressurised water reactor system known as the AP1000, the statement said.
In September, state-owned power supplier Eskom said it had short-listed Westinghouse, along with French nuclear giant Areva, as potential builders of South Africa’s second nuclear power plant.
IST Nuclear was instrumental in the early development of the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor, working with Eskom and US-based investors including Westinghouse.
More recently, IST Nuclear supplied a helium test facility for the PBMR. The company is also under contract to design key systems for a PBMR demonstration unit to be built at Koeberg, South Africa’s only nuclear plant, by 2011.
According to the company, its technology is the basis for approximately one-half of the world’s operating nuclear plants, including 60 percent of those in the US.