Earnings rose at Lynchburg, Va.- based BWX Technology (BWXT) in the third quarter, which the company attributed to trends in energy security challenges requiring nuclear solutions.
Net earnings for the third quarter ended were $102 million, or $1.11 a share, up from $82.2 million, or $0.89 a share, in the year-ago quarter, according to the company’s earnings release. Quarterly revenue was $953 million, up year-over-year from $866.3 million.
Quarterly segment operating income for government operations was $122.6 million, up from $97.4 million a year ago. Segment revenue was $639.1 million, up from $616.7 million in the year-ago period. The company said on a conference call with analysts Monday the increase was “driven by growth in special materials and advanced nuclear,” and “partially offset by modestly lower naval propulsion revenue from reduced materials procurement compared with a strong prior year quarter.”
“Commercial nuclear demand is precipitating rapidly on a global scale now, and we continue to expect to convert that demand into firm orders in 2027 and in the years to come as the trickle becomes the flood,” Rex Geveden, president and CEO of BWXT, said on the call.
On the call and in the press release, the company gave a shoutout to the U.S. Army’s selection of BWXT’s Advanced Nuclear Reactor, or BANR, technology for the service’s Janus Program at Fort Campbell, Ky. The Janus Program is a joint effort between the Army and Department of Energy to move the military toward a commercially owned-and-operated model to power military installations with nuclear energy.
The company also mentioned the new multi-year tri-structural fuel agreement between BWXT subsidiary BWXT Advanced Fuels and Antares Nuclear as a new development with “our first large-scale commercial customer.”
BWXT’s fuel and reactors power the U.S. Navy’s Ohio-, Virginia-, and Columbia-class submarines, all of which will carry warheads developed by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
BWXT is involved in major joint ventures across the DOE weapons complex, and is lead partner on liquid waste management contracts at the Hanford Site in Washington state and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
BWXT also has a virtual monopoly on the naval-nuclear reactors used in U.S. naval warships and submarines, including the Virginia-class submarines that will be sold to Australia as part of the trilateral AUKUS deal among Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. A naval nuclear reactor is an assembly requiring highly enriched uranium fuel, which BWXT produces along with other reactor parts in its facilities in Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee and Virginia.
