Profile: EnergySolutions, Inc. (ES.N)

EnergySolutions, Inc. (EnergySolutions) is a provider of specialized, technology-based nuclear services to government and commercial customers. The Company’s range of nuclear services includes engineering, in-plant support services, spent nuclear fuel management, decontamination and decommissioning (D&D), operation of nuclear reactors, logistics, transportation, processing and disposal. It also owns and operates strategic facilities that complement its services and enable it to provide a single-source solution to its customers. EnergySolutions provides its services through four segments: Federal Services; Commercial Services; Logistics, Processing and Disposal (LP&D) and International. It derives almost 100% of its revenues from the provision of nuclear services. Its government customers include the United States Department of Energy (DOE), United States Department of Defense (DOD) and United Kingdom Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). Its commercial customers include many of the largest owners and operators of nuclear power plants in the United States, such as Constellation Energy Group, Inc., Duke Energy Corporation, Entergy Corporation, Exelon Corporation and Florida Power & Light Company.

The Company operates strategic facilities for the safe processing and disposal of radioactive materials, including a facility in Clive, Utah, four facilities in Tennessee and two facilities in Barnwell, South Carolina. It also manages 10 sites in the United Kingdom with 22 reactors for the NDA, of which four operate producing electricity and 18 are in various stages of decommissioning. It has a portfolio of nuclear processing technology and know-how.

Federal Services

The Company derives revenues from United States government customers for the management and operation (M&O) or clean-up of DOE facilities that are contaminated by radioactive materials. The services that it provides to its government customers include the on-site characterization, sorting, segregation, transportation, management and disposal of classified and unclassified solid and liquid Low-Level Radioactive Waste (LLRW), Mixed Low-Level Waste (MLLW) and other special wastes. It also manages high-level radioactive waste inventories at a number of government sites, pending their future off-site disposition. In addition, it performs D&D and demolition of facilities, including disposal of radioactive materials. Its work includes the development of technologies, engineering, fabrication and operation of facilities to reduce the hazards posed by high-level radioactive waste pending final disposition in a national geological repository. In addition, it derives revenues from the provision of D&D, processing and disposal services to the DOD, including decontamination of classified equipment and retrieval or recycling of other classified or specialty parts. In some instances, as a member of a Tier 1 project team, it also manages site operations.

EnergySolutions government work generally involves providing customized waste management, decommissioning, environmental remediation, engineering and technology-based expertise at major DOE facilities, such as Richland, Washington, Idaho Falls, Idaho, Los Alamos, New Mexico, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, or Savannah River, South Carolina. Its contract role for government customers is either under Tier 1 or Tier 2 contracts. Under a Tier 1 contract, it typically provides services as an integrated member of a prime contract team.

Commercial Services

The Company provides a range of on-site services to commercial customers, including commercial power and utility companies that operate nuclear power plants, pharmaceutical companies, research laboratories, universities, industrial facilities and other entities that generate radioactive materials or are involved in the nuclear services industry. Its services include D&D, project planning, site surveys, radioactive material characterization and management, liquid waste processing, spent nuclear fuel services, emergency response and other nuclear services.

It provides site characterization, remediation, and release survey services to clients who have radioactively contaminated sites, including facilities that are licensed at the federal and state level by either the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) or NRC-Agreement States. It also provides remediation services at legacy facilities where no license exists or where licenses were previously terminated, but residual contamination remains above current regulatory guidelines.

EnergySolutions licenses stewardship program is a new approach to provide decommissioning services. Under this program, it acquires title to substantially all of a customer's buildings, facilities and equipment of its non-operating nuclear power plant. As the owner of the plant and associated permits, licenses and other assets incidental thereto, it is eligible to acquire a license from the NRC to decommission the plant and the rights to the customer's decommissioning trust funds associated with the plant, which are overseen by the NRC. The customer retains ownership of the land and leases it to the Company for the period, during which it performs D&D activities.

The Company provides a variety of client-site waste management services to operating utilities and other sites to prepare waste streams for more efficient on-site storage and/or compliant packaging and transport to a licensed disposal facility. Engineered processing at client sites includes size reduction, by means of shearing/cutting and its mobile hydraulic compaction equipment-solidification; and dewatering, using its mobile centrifuge. Its on-site radioactive liquids processing technology-based services incorporate a number of technologies, including technologically advanced ion exchange and membrane-based systems to reduce liquid waste generation, reduce radioactive discharge, improve water chemistry and enable the recycling of wastewater.

Its range of fuel pool services includes underwater transfer and container loading, cask transportation, fuel pool vacuuming, pool-to-pool transfers and waste characterization. Its fuel pool personnel are specially trained to handle the planning, on-site processing, packaging, transportation and disposal of various fuel pool components. The Company employs more than 200 trained radiation protection specialists who can be deployed throughout the United States to respond to a variety of radioactive contamination events. It also maintains procedures, equipment and mobile radioactive material licenses that can be used for radiological emergency response events.

Logistics, Processing and Disposal

The Company provides a range of logistics, processing and disposal services and own and operate strategic facilities for the safe processing and disposal of radioactive materials. Its processing and disposal facilities include its disposal facility in Clive, Utah, which is the largest privately-owned LLRW disposal site in the United States, three processing facilities in Tennessee and separate processing and disposal facilities in Barnwell, South Carolina. It operates the Barnwell disposal facility pursuant to a long-term lease with South Carolina. It also owns a facility in Tennessee.

Its transportation and logistics services encompass all aspects of transporting radioactive materials, including obtaining all required local and federal licenses and permits, loading and bracing shipments, conducting vehicle radiation surveys and providing transportation assistance to other companies throughout the United States. Through its Hittman Transportation, Inc., (Hittman), subsidiary, it owns and operates a fleet of tractors, trailers and shipping containers for transporting radioactive materials and contaminated equipment for processing and disposal.

EnergySolutions is the principal service provider to the United States Navy for the disposition of radiological materials under the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. Through a series of long-term contracts, it processes and disposes of LLRW and MLLW generated by the United States Navy's nuclear operations worldwide. Several of its facilities provide services to the United States Navy, including its Clive, Utah, Barnwell, South Carolina and Oak Ridge and Memphis, Tennessee facilities. These services include volume reduction, metal recycling, and specialized processing.

The Company competes with Bechtel Group, Inc., CH2M Hill, Fluor Corporation, Jacobs Engineering Group, URS Corporation, AMEC plc, AREVA, Bechtel Group, Inc., URS Corporation, and Shaw Group.