Toshiba still hopeful for nuclear future

November 20, 2015

Toshiba’s U.S. nuclear arm poised for Indian reactor contracts

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/business/AJ201511200024

By KEIKO NANNICHI/ Staff Writer

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania--The U.S. nuclear power subsidiary of troubled electronics company Toshiba Corp. is set to receive orders to construct nuclear reactors for the first time since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Daniel Roderick, president and CEO of Westinghouse Electric Co., said in a recent interview with The Asahi Shimbun that the company is negotiating orders to build six to 12 reactors in India.

He said the company is expecting to sign the deal in January to March next year. He added that it is also hopeful to win contracts for 30 to 50 reactors in China and eventually to build next-generation nuclear reactors in Japan.

Roderick also said the company hopes to receive orders from the United States, Eastern Europe and Australia.

The subsidiary of Toshiba, which has been embroiled in an accounting scandal since May, has received no reactor construction orders since the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant began in March 2011.

Roderick said Westinghouse sank deep into the red in fiscal 2012 and 2013. The Fukushima nuclear disaster forced the company to scrap its long-term business plan mapped out a decade ago to earn 80 percent of its revenue from construction of new reactors.

Westinghouse’s revenue from reactor construction is flagging at around 20 percent of net earnings, but Roderick said the company earned its largest profit in fiscal 2014 since becoming a Toshiba subsidiary thanks to brisk earnings from reactor maintenance services and fuel-related businesses.

The business sectors earned 40 percent and 30 percent, respectively, of the company’s net earnings last fiscal year, he added.