K-TIG to raise $25m to tackle nuclear waste disposal sector

Rapid welding machine manufacturer K-TIG is to raise between $20 million and $25 million from investors to enter the manufacture of containers to isolate nuclear wastes at the UK’s decommissioned nuclear establishments.

The Perth and Adelaide company is to raise up to 125 million shares to enable it to purchase existing UK manufacturer Graham Engineering Limited (GEL) as a base to utilise its welding technology for the production of waste containers.

GEL manufacturers highly engineered, large scale metal fabrications for the decommissioning sector including Sellafield Limited, Magnox Limited, Rolls Royce, Rapiscan Systems and Siemens.

GEL produces high level waste flasks, boxes of various sizes, drums low level boxes and furniture and product containers for a range of waste types.

According to K-TIG Chairman Stuart Carmichael said: “The proceeds of the public offer will be utilised to enable the company to acquire GEL, to undertake market development and business development activities and to expand the company’s market presence, industrial, design and engineering capabilities in the UK and international nuclear sector.”

Carmichael said storing nuclear waste required containers which must retain their integrity for a minimum of 150 years.

“K-TIG’s technology is ideally suited to the nuclear decommissioning sector with K-TIG technology providing consistently repeatable high grade welds and integration of cutting-edge real time quality inspection capability, such as ultrasonic and acoustic sensors.”

The companyhas previously received a contract from the UK Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (Nuclear AMRC) to develop a turnkey robotic welding cell.

The project will also create further competitive advantage for the core K-TIG product through integrating advanced welding Quality Control (QC) and Quality Assurance (QA) mechanisms for the market leading K-TIG Evolve 3 controller.

K-TIG is a highly refined, keyhole variation of TIG/GTAW welding developed by CSIRO that creates a single-pass, full-penetration keyhole weld in just a few minutes that would take a manual welder hours and multiple passes to perform.

Further reading:
K-TIG EXPANDS INTO NUCLEAR SECTOR AND THE UK
K-TIG TO DEVELOP NUCLEAR VESSEL ROBOTIC WELDING

Picture: K-TIG