Sheffield Forgemasters has secured its first phase of orders in the USA, thanks to the stainless steel pump casings it originally created for the Chinese market.
The order is an extension to a current contract from Curtiss Wright EMD to supply pump casings for Westinghouse AP1000 reactors located at Progress Energy’s Harris site in North Carolina and at South Carolina Electric & Gas Company’s VC Summer site.
Forgemasters has now been commissioned to produce 16 of the stage-one pump casings for plants in the USA. It will manufacture the 16-tonne casings at its Brightside lane foundry in Sheffield, UK with work commencing in 2010.
Earlier this year, Forgemasters was commissioned by Curtiss Wright to supply 18 stage-one casings for AP1000 plants located at Sanmen in Zhejiang province and Haiyang in Shandong province.
The UK-based company is also amidst expansion plans, which include the building of a 15,700 square foot heavy machine shop incorporating five new large-scale machines to increasing its manufacturing capability.
In addition, the plans involve a £6 million ($9.2 million) order for a brand new 4000-tonne hydraulic forging press which is due to be operational in Spring 2009. The company’s existing 2500 and 10,000 tonne presses are currently working at full capacity to fulfil orders. Foregmasters is also considering whether to build a 15,000-tonne open die forging press that would be capable of manufacturing the largest nuclear reactor components.
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