Shaw Group, which has a 20% ownership stake in Westinghouse Electric Company LLC, has announced a new plant that will build reactor components to be shipped via barge to new construction sites. The plant, destined for Lake Charles, Louisiana, will be a joint venture between Shaw and Westinghouse with about $210 million in assistance spread over 10 years from the state of Louisiana.
To obtain the state’s help, Shaw and Westinghouse agreed to meet a job creation timeline with milestones. If the joint venture misses the targets, the state will reduce the assistance level. The agreed upon wage average is $50,000 per year plus benefits, a target that will be hard to miss considering the prevailing wage for the skilled labor that the venture will require.
The new, 600,000 square foot facility with an eventual 1,400 permanent employees will have access to deep water and will be built on a 300 acre site that provides plenty of room for expansion if needed. The joint venture will operate under the name Global Modular Solutions LLC. The ownership proportion between Shaw and Westinghouse has not yet been finalized.
As part of the deal, Shaw also agreed to keep its headquarters operation in Baton Rouge and to add approximately 150 professional positions per year over a 10 year period at that facility. Adding up the Lake Charles and Baton Rouge jobs provides the announced total of 2900 new jobs for the state of Louisiana. People interested in the job opportunities can visit www.shawgrp.com/careers. There will also be an employment office opening at the Port of Lake Charles within the next 90 days.
According to an August 28, 2008 article published by 2theadvocate.com, the average cost per job works out to $72,000 which is in line with several other recent agreements and offers from the state to major employers including a recently closed deal with the Union Tank Car Co.
Gov. Bobby Jindal shared some encouraging words:
We’re especially excited to welcome Westinghouse as a global player in Louisiana. Nuclear (power) provides clean, affordable energy that produces no carbon emissions. The opportunity for Louisiana is we will be seeing more of this work being done on a modular basis.”
One interesting side note to this indication that Shaw Group and Westinghouse are moving forward with due haste to build the capacity that will be needed to meet their recent plant orders is that T. Boone Pickens has recently added another 17% to his stake in the Shaw Group, along with a number of additional energy related share purchases.
