Alleima reopens Swedish tube mill, boosts nuclear capacity by 60 percent

Alleima has brought its Tube Mill 2026 line back to life in Sandviken, turning a mothballed nuclear tube facility into a bigger supply source just as reactor builders are chasing more qualified tubing. The company says the reopened mill lifts output by about 60 percent and is aimed at the hard-to-source parts that keep steam generators and fuel systems moving: steam generator tubes, zirconium fuel cladding tubes, and nuclear tubes and pipes.

The reopening marks more than a routine upgrade. Alleima said the facility was inaugurated on June 2, 2026, after a SEK 330 million investment, and is expected to be operational during 2026. The site had been mothballed when a new factory opened in 2012, and its return gives Sandviken a fresh role in a supply chain that has been tightening as conventional reactors, SMRs and other advanced designs move forward. Alleima said about 300 employees are directly involved in nuclear operations, with nearly 100 more being added, while its earlier reopening plan called for around 90 additional jobs.

For nuclear buyers, the point is not just volume. Alleima says it has delivered steam generator tubing since 1968, cladding tubes since 1966 and has been in nuclear since 1964. Over that span, it says it has supplied more than 60,000,000 meters of nuclear fuel tubes to more than 100 reactors worldwide and tube bundles for more than 400 steam generators in more than 20 countries. The company also says its steam generator tubes meet Eddy Current inspection requirements with a signal-to-noise ratio of 15:1 or better, the kind of qualification detail that matters when a component has to survive inside a reactor system for years.

That extra capacity should help one of the sector’s quieter bottlenecks, but it does not erase the whole queue. Alleima said its nuclear order base is already solid and stretches well into the future, and it is already delivering contracts for SMRs while working with advanced reactor developers on helium-, lead-, sodium- and molten-salt-cooled concepts. The longer-lead pinch points remain elsewhere in the chain, especially for large components and integrated programs that still depend on qualified vendors across multiple countries.

The inauguration also drew a crowd that showed how tightly tied the vendor side has become to reactor development. Doosan Enerbility, NuScale Power, Rolls-Royce SMR and Westinghouse were among the companies represented, underscoring how tubing, fuel design and major hardware now move together. Alleima’s June 2023 order from Doosan for about 200 kilometres of steam generator tubes for NuScale SMRs, along with Rolls-Royce SMR’s May 2026 selection of Doosan Enerbility and Škoda JS for pre-production work on key components, points to the same pressure point: the industry is scaling, but only as fast as its suppliers can qualify and turn out the metal.

Sandviken’s reopened mill is therefore more than a ribbon-cutting. After a decade in mothballs, it is once again feeding the tubes that sit at the center of reactor hardware, and the real test now is whether that 60 percent lift translates into steadier deliveries across the rest of 2026.