By Kennedy Maize
In mid-February (Feb. 13) Texas giant engineering and construction company Fluor Corp. (NYSE:FLR) began implementing a financial plan it had long telegraphed: unloading its major investment in Oregon-based NuScale (NYSE:SMR), the most mature of the myriad wannabe developers of new, smaller U.S. nuclear power plants.
As Nuscale’s largest shareholder, Fluor sold 71 million NuScale shares for about $1.35 billion. The transaction left Fluor holding some 40 million shares of NuScale’s Class A common stock, which Fluor can convert into saleable common stock. Fluor was an early and most important investor in NuScale, which has come closer to actually building an array of its pressurized light water cooled small nuclear reactors than any other player in the SMR game.
What does the sale mean for NuScale shareholders? The Motley Fool investment advisory group commented, “NuScale Power shareholders shouldn’t panic over this large sale. Fluor has been an early investor in NuScale, and the construction and engineering giant has notified investors of its plans to monetize that investment….The company isn’t souring on NuScale, it is simply attempting to return the value to shareholders.”
In the context of Fluor’s ongoing exit from NuScale, two weeks after the Fluor sales the reactor developer revealed its 2025 financial results, reflecting an active — but loss-filled — year. Revenue for the year was $31.5 million, versus $37 million for 2024 (revenue is something most of the players in the SMR sweepstakes would envy). NuScale’s revenue producer is its 2024 “Front-End Engineering and Design (FEED)” SMR contract with Romania.Â
The company reported 2025 assets of $1.4 billion versus 2024’s $585 million, liabilities of $229 million compared to $92 million, and a $2.17 2025 loss per share versus 2024’s $1.46 loss per share.
Announcing the financial results, John Hopkins, NuScale president and CEO, described 2025 as a “breakthrough year.” He touted a deal “with our exclusive global commercialization partner, ENTRA1, reaching a nonbinding collaborative agreement with TVA to deploy up to 6 gigawatts of NuScale small modular reactor capacity across TVA’s seven-state service region.”
As Power Engineering magazine described the deal, politically connected Entra1, “NuScale’s exclusive global commercialization partner, will finance, build, and own the plants, selling output to TVA through power purchase agreements while also exploring additional sites and federal partnerships.”
TVA and Entra1 say they hope to have one plant (12 of NuScale’s 77-MW units) in operation by 2030, although that date is entirely speculative. Zacks Investment Service cautions that “binding power purchase agreements (PPAs) are not yet signed. Without any binding PPAs, the 6GW plan does not turn into firm revenues for Nuscale Power. For now, the 2030 timeline depends on coordinated progress across engineering, licensing, supply chain planning and customer decisions, where delays in any of these steps could push the timeline further out.”
Founded in 2007, NuScale has taken a purposefully conservative approach to designing its small modular reactors. The basis for the design is the venerable and successful light water cooled pressurized water machines, shrunken. The units would use conventional, low-enriched (<5%) uranium fuel.
Those choices made it easier to win design approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the NRC blessed both the original 50-MW design and the subsequent 77-MW upgrade. These are the only SMR technologies the NRC has approved so far, giving NuScale a “first mover” advantage.
Many of NuScale’s competitors have rolled the nuclear dice on unconventional designs, featuring “fast” neutrons and the need for “high assay, low enriched uranium” (HALEU) >5% and mostly up to 20% enrichment. These fuels do not exist in commercial quantities. Some use questionable sodium coolant technology, which has serious fire consequences.
Fluor’s selloff of NuScale stock saw the share price dip from around $57/share last fall to $15/share most recently. Should investors buy NuScale? The Motley Fool advises caution, noting that “some risks to watch are the cost of its technology and the risk of locking in firm customer commitments. Its first project, the Carbon Free Power Project, suffered from numerous cost overruns. To mitigate this risk going forward, the company has entered into a partnership with ENTRA1 to help it develop and finance its small modular reactor power plants.
“Partnering with ENTRA1 removes the massive up-front capital and construction risk from the end customer (the utility provider). ENTRA1 serves as a project developer, handling design, construction, and financing, while allowing NuScale to remain asset-light.
“However, the agreement places a significant burden on NuScale. NuScale paid $495 million to ENTRA1 Energy as a milestone payment triggered by the signing of a non-binding agreement with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to develop up to 6 gigawatts of new nuclear power. Analysts at BNP Paribas Exane estimate that NuScale could pay as much as $6 billion over the next 15 years under the agreement.
“NuScale’s small modular reactor technology is promising, and it does have an advantage as a first mover with its (NRC) certification. However, its partnership with ENTRA1 is costly and could be dilutive to shareholders. On top of that, it will take several years before it even deploys its first NuScale power plant.”
As for Fluor, the company has not abandoned its long relationship with nuclear power. Two days before its NuScale dump, the company announced it has signed an engineering, procurement and construction contract with Centrus Energy to expand its low-enriched uranium (LEU) and high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) enrichment facility in Piketon, Ohio.”