Earnings rose at BWX Technologies, Lynchburg, Va., in the first quarter, which the company partly attributed to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s intent to award it a sole source contract for an advanced uranium enrichment project.
“We had another quarter of strong commercial backlog growth and see robust opportunities for growth in our government markets, highlighted by our recent land purchase to support the National Nuclear Security Administration’s [NNSA] domestic uranium enrichment program,” Rex Geveden, CEO of BWX Technologies (BWXT), said in the company’s earnings statement.
NNSA announced in a sole-source intention notice on databases FedConnect and sam.gov April 9 that BWXT would likely be awarded a sole source contract for a Domestic Uranium Enrichment Pilot Plant. The notice said the company would design, license, construct and operate a uranium enrichment pilot plant facility to demonstrate “production readiness” of Domestic Uranium Enrichment Centrifuge Experiment (DUECE) technology to establish a supply of low-enriched uranium, before transitioning to highly enriched uranium production in the future to support naval nuclear propulsion fuel production.
For this purpose, BWXT acquired 97 acres of land in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Geveden called this a “unique value proposition in energy security” in a conference call with investors.
Net earnings for the first quarter ended March 31 were $75.5 million, or $0.82 a share, up 10% from $68.5 million, or $0.75 a share, in the year-ago quarter. Quarterly revenue was $682.3 million, up 13% year-over-year from $604 million in 2024.
Quarterly segment operating income for the government operations segment, which handles government contracting for the NNSA and other DOE sites, was $97.7 million, up from $85.7 million a year ago. Segment revenue was $555.3 million, up from $487.1 million in the year-ago period.
BWXT also has a large presence at the nuclear cleanup sites overseen by the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. this includes being lead partner in the Tank Waste Operations & Closure (H2C). H2C earlier this year took over as liquid waste manager at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
