Washington tells India Westinghouse could be sold by year end

NEW DELHI: The US administration has told India that Westinghouse Electric Co will emerge from bankruptcy and be sold by the year end, industry and diplomatic sources have said, raising the prospect of a Washington supported sale or bailout for the nuclear firm.

India, like other nuclear nations, has been closely watching the fate of Japanese-owned Westinghouse, which filed for Chapter 11 in March after an estimated US$13 billion of cost overruns at two US projects, casting a shadow over the nuclear industry.

There has been debate over potential US support for the reactor maker since owner Toshiba, the laptop-to-chips conglomerate, announced the blow-out at Westinghouse last year.

Some form of US backing or involvement, industry experts say, could avoid a Chinese or Russian buyer unpalatable to Washington, which would prefer to keep Westinghouse’s advanced nuclear technology out of the hands of its foreign rivals.

The White House declined comment.

“We were told that, by the end of the year, Westinghouse would really rework its situation and really be back in business,” India’s foreign secretary, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, told a briefing, referring to an exit from bankruptcy.

Civil nuclear cooperation has been a cornerstone of US-India relations, and the proposed construction of six Westinghouse AP1000 reactors in India’s Andhra Pradesh, announced in 2016, crowned more than a decade of diplomatic efforts. — Reuters