DRTK Duratek (MM)

Duratek, Inc. (NASDAQ:DRTK) today announced that it has formed a teaming agreement with TriVis, Inc., of Pelham, Alabama, to provide services for commercial spent nuclear fuel dry storage to the U.S. nuclear utilities marketplace. This agreement marks Duratek's entry into high-level commercial radioactive waste management services, which include the licensing, design, construction, and operation of independent spent fuel storage installations (ISFSIs); providing "pool-to-pad" services to load spent fuel into dry storage containers; and related design, engineering, and licensing activities. The associated market for spent nuclear fuel dry storage and related services is approximately $100 million over the next five years and could grow significantly in the future when transportation to permanent or temporary storage occurs. Duratek and TriVis also announced the award of their first joint project, for the support of a dry fuel storage (DFS) campaign later this year, at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Sequoyah Nuclear Plant in Soddy Daisy, Tennessee. "This agreement and contract mark an important milestone in Duratek's strategic growth initiatives," said Duratek president and CEO Robert Prince. "Our extensive service capabilities and outstanding platform base in support of waste management activities at U.S. nuclear power plants make it a natural progression for us to move into management of high-level waste. We are delighted to have formed a partnership with TriVis, which is one of the nation's leading providers of support services for the management of spent nuclear fuel." David Bland, president of TriVis, Inc., said, "Currently, there are over 30 independent spent fuel storage installations in the U.S. operating as dry fuel storage sites. TriVis personnel have been involved in half of these and are directly responsible for loading 40% of the DFS casks loaded over the past five years. There will be over 30 additional independent spent fuel storage installations put into operation over the next 10 years. The depth and breadth of Duratek's experience base, combined with TriVis' specialized expertise in this arena, is well-suited to support the continued growth of demand for dry spent nuclear fuel storage efforts." Duratek provides safe, secure radioactive materials disposition and nuclear facility operations for commercial and government customers. TriVis provides safe, timely, incident free dry spent fuel loading campaigns for its clients along with management and licensing support for spent fuel storage and transportation. Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 21E(i)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause Duratek's actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied by these statements. Such factors include the following: the Company's ability to manage its commercial waste processing operations, the timing and award of contracts by the U.S. Department of Energy for the cleanup of waste sites administered by it; the acceptance and implementation of the Company's waste treatment technologies in the government and commercial sectors; and other large technical support services projects; the Company's ability to successfully add revenues from new contracts; and the timing of completing existing contracts. All forward-looking statements are also expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements included in the Company's SEC filings, including its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and its annual report on Form 10-K.