Title: Investing in the Nuclear Reactor Supply Chain | Ben Finegold and Jimmy Connor Show: Jimmy Connor (YouTube), recorded at the WNA Symposium, London Guest: Ben Finegold (Ocean Wall; co-runs the 5T Nuclear Fund with 5T, Zurich) Date: 2026-09-16 URL: https://youtu.be/RHCMm920SYQ Length: 10:07 Note: YouTube auto-transcript; fillers (um/uh/you know) and stutters removed, obvious ASR fixes ("Siemens GE Ben over" = Siemens, GE Vernova); wording otherwise verbatim.
00:09 Ben, thank you very much for joining us today. You and your team at Ocean Wall produce some amazing research on all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, and you recently published a new report. I'm going to read it here. From Blueprint to Fleet, Mapping the Nuclear Trade. And in this report, you look at many different aspects of the supply chain associated with the Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactor.
00:32 So, maybe you can just speak to this report. >> Yeah, great to be back. Great to see you again, Jimmy. Really what we're trying to focus on doing is looking at the next leg of this trade. We've been very vocal in our support for nuclear fuel over the last 7 years since the company was founded. And that's been a great trade, and we still think that there's a lot of money to be made there.
00:52 But ultimately, we believe that the next leg of this trade is going to be demand-led. And by that, I mean actually bringing online new nuclear power capacity. And we've seen that sort of ambition being realized in the Eastern world, but not necessarily so much in the Western world. And so, whether it's Westinghouse or whoever's going to be building these reactors, and in our view, Westinghouse is probably the best proxy to look at this type of trade and the tangential trades around the build-out.
01:19 We believe there is a lot of money to be made in really picking apart the reactor itself and seeing which EPC contracting firms are going to be first in line to build this fleet of what is now a pipeline of 91 reactors globally for the AP1000. Who does the reactor pressure vessels? Who does the steam turbines? The compressors? Who does the software? All of these types of trades we're interested in looking at as we start to really realize our nuclear ambition.
01:49 I think the last 6 years has really been about really strong rhetoric, strong policy, and also a lot more financial backing, which has helped, but really now we need to kick on getting projects to FID, and that's what I think the next 5 years is going to be defined by. And this is really used as a guide for investors to look at the AP1000 in its parts, and we screened 144 different companies, and essentially have a scoring system, which you can do.
02:17 You can get up to a total of 25 points, and you get scored based on the deliverability aspect. You get scored based on how localized the supply chain is. It's really a guide for investors to see what are the tangential trades around the build out of the AP1000. >> And I love this because one of the mistakes I've made in the last couple of years is I've just been too focused on mining, and a lot of the better performing stocks have been outside of mining.
02:44 So, this is going to be a great resource. Now, you also mentioned the fact that the pipeline for the Westinghouse AP1000 is 91? >> 91 reactors. >> And I believe that came out during Cameco's last conference call? >> Correct. >> And Cameco owns 49% of Westinghouse, which is still a private company, but I guess if you want to play Westinghouse, you do it through Cameco.
03:04 >> For the time being, as you know, Westinghouse has filed to go public, which I guess we're expecting at some point in the near future. And so Westinghouse is an obvious name to own as and when you can own it in public markets. Today, as you say, Cameco has a 49% shareholder, you get your exposure there, and obviously you get your fuel exposure as well.
03:26 But the other conclusions from this report are Doosan, and also BWXT. We also have a dedicated fund that we run called the 5T nuclear fund with our partners 5T in Zurich, and that has quite a large supply chain exposure as well. But Doosan and BWXT, what we have concluded is we don't want companies that are taking this binary tech risk.
03:50 We want to back companies that whichever reactor design wins, and we believe the AP1000 will, but even in the SMR space, which are the companies that are going to service those reactors regardless of who wins. And so, trying to take that, I guess, tech risk out of it. >> Now, I'm not familiar with either one of those companies.
04:06 What exactly do they do? >> So, Doosan pretty much have a monopoly in terms of who the West can actually get reactor pressure vessels from and get the forgings done from it. There's a great matrix in here, and credit to Alex, who's our Star Analyst at Ocean Wall, who put this together. There's a brilliant matrix that shows Doosan really is the only allied country capable of forging these large reactor pressure vessels.
04:32 BWXT, similarly, an absolute behemoth in the large manufacturing components for nuclear equipment. They've just increased their heavy manufacturing capacity by 50% in North America. But also, they have 70% of revenues locked up under US government contracts of servicing the US military, as well.
04:51 Very, very sticky, recurring revenue business. But as we say, and we put out a report on BWXT saying, whoever wins the SMR race, BWXT is going to be a winner, too. And so, very happy to share that with anyone who'd like to see that, as well. >> Now, I think it's worth mentioning the AP1000.
05:09 There's only two of them in the US. I believe there's four in China. And 91 is a big number, right? If you say we have this pipeline of 91, how long's it going to take them to build those? >> Well, if you look at the Vogtle 3 and 4, the last two units built in the US, it's going to take a long time. However, we have a regulatory framework that has been really modernized, that has been stripped not down to its bones, but as at the compromise of safety, but it's really been much, much more
05:39 efficient in getting permitting and licensing put through. And so, I think that will play in getting these reactors built faster. And then, it's all going to come down to the supply chain and the ability to procure long lead time equipment like the reactor pressure vessel. There's also a brilliant table in there that looks at the lead time for each bit of kit.
05:59 So, where are the real sort of golden screws that you might have to wait four five years for. You see companies like Siemens, GE Vernova trading at 70 80 times earnings today because their forward order book is sold out for the next five years. >> This is one of the things I don't understand though. Why are the Chinese able to build nuclear reactors so fast and yet we in the West take forever? >> Yeah, just to put some numbers behind it.
06:22 They're building reactors now for sub 6 billion US. EDF, which is really the bastion of European nuclear, is sending their engineers on secondment to China to go and figure out exactly this question. I think a lot of it comes down to regulation and there's not really this concept of NIMBYism in China.
06:38 If they want to build a reactor somewhere, they're going to build it there. And also there's a brilliant book which I would urge anyone to read called Breakneck which looks at the China as the engineering state versus the US as the political state. 70% of Chinese politicians have engineering degrees versus 70% of US politicians who have legal degrees.
06:55 They know how to build stuff is what I'm getting at. But also they have huge government subsidies that allow them to really get these projects to FID very very quickly. We're going through a process at the moment trying to put together some development capital for an SMR project in the UK and it's not a pool of capital that typically exists for your large infrastructure funds.
07:17 So, having government put in and stepping in and getting that first three four five hundred million dollars so you can get shovels in the ground it is a massive massive help. And I think ultimately it's the labor force as well. The price of the labor force and the relative cheapness but also their skill set.
07:33 >> So, you've had a busy week meeting with investors, meeting with many different companies. Maybe you can discuss some of the key takeaways from this year's conference. >> Yeah, look I mean it's always, I've been lucky that in the seven years that I've been coming to WNA, they've been the sort of golden years of nuclear power, but each year more people are here.
07:51 You start to see the Amazons turn up. You start to see the oil and gas industry turn up. And so, the types of people that you meet at these conferences has really changed over the years. My main takeaway from this week has been Canada. And I really think that the role that Canada is going to play in the future of the nuclear industry.
08:12 Everyone knows that Canada is one of the largest, if not the largest player in the Western world for nuclear fuel and also for nuclear power. But it's going to become so much more strategic. And so, one of my main takeaways has been the juniors, particularly in the Athabasca Basin, that I think perhaps have fallen under the radar during this cycle, are going to start to catch up because there is such a need for more uranium in the Western world.
08:37 The global supply deficit of, call it 50 million pounds per year, is not geographically equal. The East is far better coverage than the West. So, Canada has to play an outsized role in that. And so, I think my sort of takeaway trade from this week on the fuel side is definitely Canada, Canada, Canada. >> And are you talking about the larger companies or the smaller ones, the explorcos? >> I think there's relatively better value in the smaller names.
09:02 I think, again, I'm a big fan of Cameco, I'm a shareholder of Cameco, but relatively priced is not cheap. Look at that versus some of the quite exciting sort of junior exploration names across the US and also across Canada. I think there's some interesting trades around that. And ultimately, there's going to be a wave of consolidation like we saw in the previous cycle.
09:24 So, a lot of opportunity for M&A there and for investors to do well from it. >> Great insights. Well, one more question before we wrap it up. You live in London and you work in London. So, I'm sure you've hit many pubs over the years. What's your favorite pub? What's one pub I should check out when I'm in London? >> I'm not sure if this is the same answer I gave last year, but I'm still going to go the Fox and Pheasant, James Blunt's pub in Fulham.
09:47 And I'm going to give a shout-out to our local pub at Ocean Wall, the New Explorer, which has been good to us over the years. >> I'll check them out. Thank you very much for making the time. >> Thank >> [music]