Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

Earnings more than doubled year-over-year at Centrus, Bethesda, Md., in the second quarter, during which the company’s flagship uranium brokerage business almost tripled, according to a press release.  The company’s quarterly earnings call was scheduled for Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time. Centrus often has what it sometimes calls lumpy quarters, where uranium fuel orders […]

Earnings rose at BWX Technologies, Lynchburg, Va., in the second quarter, which the company on Monday attributed partly to organic growth in government operations as it prepared to begin work on a new nuclear weapons contract. In June, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) awarded PanTeXas Deterrence, a BWX Technologies (BWXT)-led joint venture, a contract […]

Privately-held Amentum, which has made big acquisitions of late, recorded a net loss in two of the past three fiscal years, according to a financial filing prior to next month’s planned merger with the government contracting branch of Dallas-based Jacobs. That is according to a July 15 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission by […]

Publicly-traded companies involved with Department of Energy nuclear programs were not exempt from Monday’s stock market nosedive, although most rallied by the close of trading Thursday. Companies that are big players in both the DOE Office of Environmental Management and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and Office of Nuclear Energy posted per-share declines on Monday, […]

Earnings fell at Jacobs Solutions, Dallas, in its third quarter, as the international engineering and construction company refocuses on high-growth areas as it prepares to spin off its government contracting business that will merge with Amentum. Jacobs announced its quarterly financial results in a Tuesday press release. The company made a new Securities and Exchange […]

Here is a look at how far five Department of Energy nuclear-weapon sites have come in the year since the agency announced a drive to repurpose underutilized land for clean energy generation. DOE’s Cleanup to Clean Energy Project launched in July 2023. It was DOE’s way of meeting President Biden’s (D) Executive Order calling on […]

Officials from the United States and Singapore signed a 30-year peaceful civil nuclear technology deal, or 1-2-3 agreement, on Wednesday as part of the U.S. secretary of state’s six-country Asia tour. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Singapore Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan were present for the signing. Officials from both countries, in a joint […]

Availability of water at the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant, which is continually decreasing, is “important for nuclear security,” according to the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency. “The dwindling water levels in the cooling pond remains a potential source of concern, and we will continue to closely monitor and observe the situation at the […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration must address safety concerns involving the seismic safety controls at the lab that does subcritical experiments to account earthquake- and other related-risks, according to a safety report. According to a review posted online, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) evaluated the safety designs at the Principal Underground Laboratory for […]

WASHINGTON — Modernization of U.S. nuclear weapons and delivery systems is moving too slowly and the Pentagon has heard about it, Nebraska’s senior U.S. senator said here Tuesday at a think tank. “When we’re in classified briefings and I hear from the military and the department, they give me dates on when things are going […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration is looking for sea transport of nuclear materials from east Asia, according to a solicitation posted Friday on a government contracting database. Offers are due August 16, and work would be done within two years of the solicitation, according to an unclassified statement of work appended to the solicitation.   […]

Teresa Robbins from Y-12 was appointed assistant principal deputy administrator of operations at National Nuclear Security Administration headquarters, according to an email seen by the Exchange Monitor. The newly created headquarters job, NA-4 for short, siphons off some of the responsibilities previously given to the agency’s top-ranking civil servant, the associate principal deputy administrator, or […]

Huntington Ingalls Industries on Thursday posted what it called strong second quarter results driven by gains at its Mission Technologies segment with help from shipbuilding operations. Huntington Ingalls Industries’ (HII) net income in the second quarter rose 33% to $173 million, or $4.38 a share, from $130 million, or $3.27 a share, a year ago, […]

Earnings rose at Fluor, Irving, Texas, in the second quarter, which the global engineering company with a big footprint in the Department of Energy, attributed to long-term government and commercial contracts, according to a Friday press release. Net earnings for the second quarter ended June 30 were $169 million, or $0.97 a share, up from […]

Plans to relocate the Nevada National Security Site’s Las Vegas-area campus are on hold for lack of funds, a National Nuclear Security Administration spokesperson told the Monitor Thursday. “The move from the North Las Vegas Facility to a new location was evaluated…because it was identified as a project that could potentially occur in the next […]

WASHINGTON — The National Nuclear Security Administration would get more than its requested budget for 2025 but fewer funds for nuclear weapons, under a bill Senate appropriators passed unanimously on Thursday. But with a companion spending bill stalled on the House floor and the Senate headed out of town until after Labor Day, a compromise […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration released a report last week that said the U.S. nuclear stockpile had 3,748 warheads as of September 2023. Information on the nuclear weapons stockpile was last released and updated in October 2021, when the stockpile had 3,713 warheads. The number of nuclear warheads is down 88% from its peak in […]

On Tuesday, more than two-dozen advocacy groups with an anti-nuclear bent called on the Senate Appropriations Committee to fund a federal nuclear watchdog agency at the $47.2 million level sought by President Joe Biden for fiscal 2025 and the panel came close.  Senate appropriators took up their version of the legislation Thursday and  called for […]

An Australian government agency signed a deal this month to store nuclear waste from AUKUS submarines on a naval base in the country, despite community concerns. The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) issued a license to the Australian Submarine Agency to prepare what the agency calls a “Controlled Industrial Facility” on naval […]

Iran must comply with International Atomic Energy Agency rules again to enter nuclear talks with the U.S., a State Department spokesperson said this week after the Islamic Republic swore in a new president. The spokesperson said July 29 that the state department has “no expectation” that the election of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, a self-styled […]

The secretary of energy discussed plans for modernizing the Cernavoda nuclear power plant and other U.S.-Romania civil nuclear and energy projects in Bucharest July 23-24, according to a Department of Energy press release. Jennifer Granholm, the U.S. secretary of energy, gave keynote remarks on Wednesday at the 5th annual ministerial meeting of the Partnership for […]

Vice President Kamala Harris’ (D) positions on nuclear weapons, when she’s taken any at all, hew closely to Democratic orthodoxies of support for the Iran nuclear deal and denuclearization of North Korea. Harris, fast becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee for President following President Joe Biden’s (D) July withdrawal from the race, visited the Korean demilitarized […]

Roughly 25 miles up the road from the Savannah River Site, about equidistant between Aiken in South Carolina and Augusta in Georgia, sits Aiken Technical College. Founded in 1972, the public community college has about 1,800 students, many of whom focus on the coursework necessary for a career in health care. This year, school leaders […]

Workers at the Savannah River Site in June removed the last pieces of plutonium recycling equipment from a building that will house the site’s pit plant, the site’s management contract said Wednesday. Over 18 months, workers removed over 2,500 gross tons of material from the area, according to the press release from Savannah River Nuclear […]

After hours of debate on more than 60 amendments this week, the House of Representatives canceled a planned vote on several 2025 appropriations bills, including the one that funds the Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration. Media reported Wednesday that a fractious, razor-thin Republican majority could not wrangle enough votes in their own […]

PanTeXas Deterrence announced four key personnel who will lead management of the Pantex Plant alongside Kelly Beierschmitt, president of the BWX Technologies-led venture, the parent announced Tuesday. The four other senior managers leading PanTeXas Deterrence are: Carl Beard, production operations director. Beard has five years of experience at the Pantex Plant and experience in pit […]

After Virginia-based Amentum merges with the Jacobs government contracting and cyber businesses this year, the company plans to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “AMTM,”, according to a financial filing last week. Dallas-based Jacobs will still trade under the symbol “J,” according to a joint Securities and Exchange Commission filing by […]

A plaintiff who claims false statements by the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico led to the breakup of his marriage served legal papers on the government defendant, he told a federal court last week. After being warned by U.S. District Court Judge Steven Yarbrough that the case would be dismissed unless […]