Employers
Westinghouse Electric Company will spend approximately $1 billion to build a new nuclear fuel factory at its Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility in Hopkins, in Richland County, South Carolina, the company and Gov. Henry McMaster’s office announced Wednesday, Oct. 21. Neither announcement says how many new jobs the project will create.
That gap is the main thing job seekers should know. South Carolina’s Coordinating Council for Economic Development approved job development credits tied to the project, according to the governor’s office, but the state release does not attach a hiring number to those credits, and the company release does not give one either. The $1 billion figure describes capital spending on a factory and its equipment, not a payroll commitment.
What is being built
The new plant will make what the industry calls LEU+ fuel, low-enriched uranium with enrichment levels of 5% to 8%, above the traditional 5% limit. Westinghouse says the higher enrichment can raise reactor power output and let plant operators run longer between refuelings. The company says it achieved the first U.S. deployment of LEU+ fuel in 2025 through an industry partnership.
The factory will be built on the existing Bluff Road campus. Construction is under way, and both releases put the start of operations in 2030. Westinghouse describes the project as the first fleet-scale nuclear fuel factory built in the United States in more than 50 years and as its largest single manufacturing investment supporting the operating reactor fleet.
The existing Columbia facility, built in 1968, makes fuel pellets, fuel rods, fuel assemblies and fuel components for other Westinghouse plants and customers around the world. The state says the site produces fuel that powers approximately 10% of U.S. electricity.
The workforce that is already there
What is documented is the current workforce. Westinghouse says the Columbia facility employs more than 1,200 people in Lower Richland. That is an existing headcount, not a figure for the expansion. The Post and Courier, in a report syndicated on Yahoo News, likewise said the Hopkins plant currently employs 1,200 people and did not report a count of new Westinghouse jobs.
A Westinghouse-commissioned economic impact study with researchers at the University of South Carolina’s Darla Moore School of Business projects $4.9 billion in economic impact across South Carolina over 10 years, including about $3.8 billion in Richland County. The company attributes that impact to construction, new equipment and “the creation of additional jobs,” but the release does not separate how much comes from hiring. A study commissioned by the company is a projection, not an independent count.
Local incentives
Richland County Council gave final approval on Tuesday, Oct. 20, to incentives that include a 40-year fee-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement and infrastructure credits, according to the Post and Courier. Under a fee-in-lieu arrangement, the company pays a negotiated fee instead of standard property taxes. The newspaper also reported that Westinghouse received a 30-year tax break in 2021 tied to a $131 million investment at the same plant.
Richland County Council Chairwoman Jesica Mackey said in the company release that the expansion “ensures that we’ll continue to see high-paying jobs and economic stability for years to come,” language that points to retaining the existing base as much as adding to it.
What it means for workers
Fuel fabrication is a regulated, safety-intensive form of manufacturing, and a new production line typically draws on process operators, maintenance technicians, engineers and quality and safety staff. But the company has not said which roles it will add, how many, at what pay, or on what schedule, and the factory is not expected to run until 2030. The state release directs interested applicants to Westinghouse’s careers page.
Until Westinghouse or the state publishes a job figure, the verifiable facts are a roughly $1 billion construction project, a 2030 start date, and an existing workforce of more than 1,200 at the Hopkins site.
Sources
- Office of the Governor of South Carolina, “Westinghouse expands Richland County operations to advance next-generation nuclear fuel,” October 21, 2026. https://governor.sc.gov/news/2026-10/westinghouse-expands-richland-county-operations-advance-next-generation-nuclear-fuel
- Westinghouse Electric Company, “Westinghouse Announces Landmark Expansion in South Carolina to Advance Next-Generation Nuclear Fuel,” October 21, 2026. https://info.westinghousenuclear.com/news/westinghouse-announces-landmark-expansion-in-south-carolinato-advance-next-generation-nuclear-fuel
- Westinghouse Electric Company, “Westinghouse is Growing in Richland County,” accessed October 22, 2026. https://westinghousenuclear.com/columbia-community/facility-expansion
- The Post and Courier via Yahoo News, “Uranium enrichment expansion, Scout Motors supplier net Richland County tax breaks,” October 21, 2026. https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/uranium-enrichment-expansion-scout-motors-180900404.html
Featured photo: Then-NRC Chairman Stephen G. Burns listens as Westinghouse's David Precht explains fuel pellet and fuel rod assembly during a visit to Westinghouse's fuel fabrication facility near Columbia, S.C., on March 24, 2016. The new LEU+ factory announced Oct. 21, 2026, is under construction on the same campus. Photo: Nuclear Regulatory Commission, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain). Cropped from the original.
