Bechtel and TerraPower have parted ways on the Natrium reactor project in Kemmerer, Wyo. after failing to come to an agreement on the next stages, according to public disclosure papers filed in Virginia.
The news was included in a Sept. 15 Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notification, in which Bechtel informed Fairfax County officials of the company’s plans to cut its Reston, Va. headquarters workforce by 200 employees. Bechtel said in the document it is expecting the layoffs to occur by Nov. 16.
“TerraPower and Bechtel were unable to reach an agreement on the next phase of the project and have decided to move forward separately,” Suchit Chopra, Bechtel’s Natrium project director, said in the notice. “Bechtel will therefore scale down its operations supporting the projects and reduce staffing levels as work is completed.”
“While the WARN notices are a legal requirement, we do not expect any actual layoffs,” a Bechtel spokesperson told Exchange Monitor Monday. “Our people will move to other nuclear projects underway across the company, where demand for these skills continues to grow,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
Bechtel will stay on site to finish out construction of the “Sodium Test & Fill Facility” and will support the contractor transition there, the spokesperson added.
Bechtel was selected to be TerraPower’s engineering and construction partner in October 2020 and the two companies broke ground for the non-nuclear construction of the Kemmerer project in June 2024. In March, TerraPower was issued a construction permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to begin nuclear construction at the site.
Bechtel was leading the nuclear construction of the project in April, but the recent split has caused both companies to pivot. TerraPower awarded 12 new supplier contracts in late August for the Natrium project.
TerraPower’s Natrium design is a 345-megawatt sodium fast reactor with a molten salt-based energy storage system. The energy storage technology can boost the system’s capacity to 500 megawatts of power when needed. The Natrium plant is being built on an old coal site.