US-based X-Energy Reactor Company has awarded a three-year $100m contract to SGL Carbon for a 10-year supply of graphite to support the first deployment of its Xe-100 small modular reactor (SMR). The agreement is anchored by a long-term framework to support production readiness for future projects. X-energy said these commitments help to strengthen its SMR supply chain development at full commercial scale, supporting execution of its 11 GWe commercial pipeline.
The Xe-100 is a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor with a thermal output of 200 MWt or an electrical output of 80 MWe. It can be scaled into a four-pack 320 MWe power plant, fuelled by the company’s proprietary TRISO-X tri-structural isotropic particle fuel. The Xe-100 evolved from both the UK’s Dragon reactor at Winfrith in Dorset and the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor project in South Africa.
X-energy was selected by the US Department of Energy (DOE) in 2020 to receive up to $1.2bn in matching funds under the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) to develop, license, build, and demonstrate an operational advanced reactor and fuel fabrication facility by the end of the decade. X-Energy has since completed the reactor engineering and basic design and is developing a fuel fabrication facility in Oak Ridge in Tennessee.
X-energy is advancing its Xe-100 SMR and TRISO-X fuel in projects with Dow, Amazon, and Centrica. Its initial proposed four-unit Xe-100 plant is planned for Dow’s UCC Seadrift Operations manufacturing site on the Texas Gulf Coast, supported by the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP), and currently under permit review with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
Under the initial contract, SGL has begun production of graphite reactor components using their specialised NBG-18 medium-grain isotropic graphite for the first deployment of the Xe-100, the proposed four-unit plant in partnership with Dow in Seadrift under the ARDP.
As part of the long-term framework, X-energy has reserved additional capacity in SGL’s production schedule for the Cascade Advanced Energy Facility. Cascade is a planned 12-unit Xe-100 project in Washington State with Energy Northwest and the first of several X-energy projects with Amazon targeting at least 5 GWe of new nuclear by 2039. X-energy and SGL’s long-term commitment is expected to support collaboration on future projects, helping to ensure supply chain continuity for material across X-energy’s growing commercial orderbook. Graphite production is expected to begin in the second half of 2026.
SGL is a leading developer and manufacturer of advanced carbon materials, operating at 29 sites across Europe, North America, and Asia. X-energy and SGL have collaborated since 2015 on the qualification of NBG-18 graphite for use in the Xe-100, leveraging SGL’s experience manufacturing graphite for HTGRs.
“Scaling new nuclear requires partners who know how to execute, and have done so time and again in the world’s most demanding industries,” said X-energy CEO J Clay Sell. “SGL brings decades of innovation in aerospace, automotive, energy, and semiconductor applications, and we are thrilled to bring that depth of experience into the new nuclear sector.”
SGL Carbon CEO Andreas Klein said, “X-energy has done groundbreaking work in recent years and is now entering the implementation phase with its first projects with Dow and other well-known customers. We are proud to be part of this success story and to contribute to a long-term and successful partnership. This is a first milestone in the development of new applications for our products and SGL Carbon’s entry into a strategically important market.”
X-energy and SGL’s agreement advances X-energy’s fleet-scale SMR supply chain development strategy and builds on recent announcements with global industrial leaders including Doosan Enerbility for steel manufacturing and capacity expansion, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power for fleet-scale deployment collaboration, and additional agreements for IG-110 fine-grain graphite.
