Ontario awards 14 Darlington SMR contracts; Fluor takes Cascade work

Four new nuclear efforts signed up suppliers and contractors between October 30 and November 6, 2026. Ontario awarded 14 contracts to Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area companies for the Darlington New Nuclear Project, X-energy announced the first steam generator tubing order for its Texas Xe-100 plant, Fluor took the reactor-side engineering for the Cascade project in Washington, and Hyundai E&C signed a five-year services agreement with FANCO for its EAGL-1 reactor.

Ontario hands out 14 Darlington contracts

Fourteen contracts have gone to companies in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area to build the small modular reactor at Ontario Power Generation's Darlington New Nuclear Project, Ontario's Ministry of Energy and Mines said on November 6. The province calls the unit the G7's first SMR and says the contracts will add over C$110 million to Ontario's GDP.

The work is mostly the unglamorous kind a construction site eats. The province's backgrounder lists 12 recipients, led by St. Marys Cement with contracts totaling C$50.2 million for concrete and a high-density concrete wet batch plant. Smith & Long has C$14.6 million for temporary and permanent electrical power systems, WillScot C$10.7 million for a construction trailer complex, ASI Marine C$9.2 million to assist with tunnel-boring machine operations, and Curtiss-Wright Nuclear Canada C$8.9 million for airlocks. The smallest is C$300,000 to Clyde Union Canada for a pump and pump motor. By our arithmetic the contract values listed for the 12 companies total about C$110.7 million.

The pitch is about tariffs. The province frames the awards as part of its plan to protect Ontario from U.S. tariffs, and Stephen Lecce, Minister of Energy and Mines, says "Nuclear energy is tariff-proof, which is why we are building at scale and for future generations."

The reactor is the first of four SMRs planned for the site, which together will deliver 1,200 MW once complete, per the release. The province also counts a C$2 billion federal investment through the Canada Growth Fund; Canada's federal budget puts that at up to C$2 billion. Promation's president, quoted in the release, names the design as the BWRX-300, the reactor TVA holds a US construction permit for at Clinch River.

X-energy's first steam generator tubing order

The Xe-100's first steam generator tubing is on order. X-energy, Alleima and Doosan Enerbility announced the procurement on November 4 for the first Xe-100 deployment, a proposed four-unit plant with Dow in Texas under the Department of Energy's Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, per X-energy. Alleima will make the stainless steel tubing and Doosan will bend it into helical coils, a central component of a steam generator that X-energy says produces steam at up to 565°C.

The order runs through Doosan. Alleima says it received the order from Doosan Enerbility and will supply the tubing to Doosan, and Carl von Schantz, president of Alleima's tube division, says in both companies' releases: "We are proud to support Doosan Enerbility with advanced tubing solutions for X-energy's Xe-100 program." Neither release gives a value. The coil work follows a December 2025 agreement reserving Doosan capacity for 16 sets of Xe-100 pressure vessels for the reactor, steam generator and internal nuclear-grade steel components such as helical coils, X-energy says.

The Texas plant is Long Mott, where NRC staff issued the final safety evaluation on October 30, five days before the order was announced.

Fluor takes the nuclear island at Cascade

X-energy has selected Fluor for design and engineering services on Energy Northwest's Cascade Advanced Energy Facility, a proposed Xe-100 plant near Richland, Washington, X-energy said on November 5. Fluor's scope is engineering, design development, supply chain, estimating and project controls for the nuclear island, the reactors and the systems that support them.

The plant's design work is split along that line. Cascade Nuclear Partners, a joint venture of Kiewit Nuclear Solutions, Black & Veatch and Aecon, is Energy Northwest's progressive design-builder, responsible for the conventional island and for integrating requirements across the plant. X-energy argues the split works because the Xe-100 needs significantly fewer safety-related systems than light-water designs, so most of the plant can use off-the-shelf industrial components.

Fluor says Cascade is expected to deploy four Xe-100s of about 320 MW in total, with potential to grow to 12 units and 960 MW, and that it will recognize the undisclosed contract value in the third quarter. Fluor already provides similar services for the Texas project. Cascade is the first project in X-energy and Amazon's goal of 5 GW of new nuclear by 2039; the second is the AEP plant under study in Indiana.

Hyundai E&C signs on early for FANCO's EAGL-1

Hyundai Engineering & Construction signed a five-year master service agreement with First American Nuclear Co. (FANCO) at its Seoul headquarters on October 30, Hyundai E&C said. It will provide constructability reviews, technical advisory services on design and engineering, and technical feedback on construction for EAGL-1, a fast reactor cooled by a liquid lead-bismuth alloy and sized at about 240 MWe per reactor.

The agreement carries no price. It sets common terms, and the two companies will issue task orders setting out the scope of work, duration and contract value as specific work arises; it builds on a framework agreement signed in July and can be extended by mutual consent. Hyundai E&C is candid about the prize: bringing its EPC expertise in from the design stage onward, it says, raises "the likelihood of its participation in the project's construction phase." FANCO has submitted a regulatory engagement plan to the NRC, the release says.