Hyundai E&C teams with First American on EAGL-1 SMR project

Hyundai Engineering & Construction has signed a framework agreement with First American Nuclear Company for early-stage work on EAGL-1, a 240 MWe lead-bismuth-cooled fast-spectrum SMR that is already moving through U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission pre-application engagement. The agreement was signed in New York on July 13 at the InterContinental New York Times Square Hotel, giving the project a clearer industrial backer at a stage when most advanced-reactor concepts are still trying to prove they can be licensed at all.

The Hyundai-FANCO pact covers balance-of-plant design, BridgePower support, constructability reviews and modularization strategy. Hyundai E&C also plans to support component and auxiliary-system design in the early phases, then explore a larger future role as the project’s engineering, procurement and construction partner. That matters in reactor terms because the work sits well before concrete is poured: it is the kind of engineering that determines whether a design can be built, assembled and eventually financed on a real site.

FANCO has already put EAGL-1 on a regulatory track. The company submitted its regulatory engagement plan to the NRC on February 10, 2026; the agency released it publicly on February 25, and FANCO announced the filing on April 15 as the formal opening of pre-application engagement. The plan covers 12 planned interactions with NRC staff and is intended to support a future construction-permit pathway. For a project still in the pre-application phase, that is the clearest milestone yet that separates a framework agreement from a simple memorandum of understanding.

EAGL-1 is being pitched as a fuel-agnostic reactor that can run on mixed-oxide fuel, other transuranic fuels from U.S. Department of Energy stockpiles and high-assay low-enriched uranium. FANCO says the strategy could help avoid fuel-supply bottlenecks while reducing long-term waste inventories. The company also describes EAGL-1 as a liquid metal fast reactor and says it is the only reactor of any kind in the United States using lead-bismuth cooling technology.

The project’s BridgePower concept is aimed at customers that want power before licensing is done. FANCO says a site could start with conventional package boilers and later switch to nuclear heat and steam generation by replacing the boilers with EAGL-1 while keeping the same turbine infrastructure. FANCO has also floated an Indiana nuclear energy park that would combine reactor manufacturing with an energy complex. For EAGL-1, the real test now is whether the licensing work and the engineering package advance far enough to turn a signed framework into a construction-ready plant.