[THE INVESTOR] Hyundai Heavy Industries has won an additional contract to supply two vacuum vessel sectors, the key component of the multibillion-dollar project International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, the company said on July 19.

Under the US$101.6 million deal, HHI will build two of the nine vacuum vessel sectors (No.7 and 8) that make up the main body of the ITER, the world’s largest nuclear fusion machine being built in Cadarache, southern France. Each vacuum vessel sectors measures 400 tons in weight and 12 meters in height. 


The company is scheduled to complete the equipment by the end of 2020 and deliver to the ITER construction site.

In 2010, HHI received the first order to build two vacuum vessel sectors (No.1 and 6) by 2019. With the latest addition, the price of the contract Hyundai won amounts to a whopping US$380 million.

The ITER project, funded and run by seven entities -- including the European Union, India, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea and the US -- was launched in 2007 with an aim to build an experimental nuclear reactor that generates cleaner, safer and more efficient energy sources through atomic fusion.


By Ahn Sung-mi (sahn@heraldcorp.com)