Published 2026-11-10 · Cyclone Bolt

BWX Technologies will invest $714.5 million and add 181 jobs at its Jonesborough, Tennessee site to produce High Purity Depleted Uranium metal for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development announced on November 6, 2026. The agreement behind the expansion was signed and announced by Gov. Bill Lee, Deputy Gov. and TNECD Commissioner Stuart C. McWhorter and BWXT officials, and it covers the company's existing facility in Washington County.

The state said the 181 new positions will more than double BWXT's current local workforce. Area Development reported on November 8, 2026 that the project involves construction of a new manufacturing facility at the company's existing site.

The details

The expansion builds on a federal contract that was already in hand. According to TNECD, NNSA awarded BWXT a 10-year contract valued at $1.6 billion in September 2025 to build an HPDU manufacturing plant at the Jonesborough site. The state said that once the facility is completed, Jonesborough will be the only active site capable of performing this process for the government. TNECD also noted that the announcement follows BWXT's 2025 purchase of the Aerojet Ordnance Tennessee facility.

The project is supported by an economic development grant from TNECD, drawn from the state's Nuclear Energy Fund. The state did not disclose the grant amount. TNECD said the fund started with $50 million in the governor's recommended 2023-2024 budget, and that a further $45 million was approved across the 2024, 2025 and 2026 legislative sessions, bringing the total to $95 million. The state described the Jonesborough project as the third for BWXT and the 12th overall to use the fund, and said projects drawing on it have resulted in nearly 4,000 new jobs and more than $10 billion in capital investment.

The two earlier BWXT projects under the fund were a new Oak Ridge location with 60 jobs and $45 million in investment, and an expansion in Erwin with 198 jobs and $122 million, according to TNECD. Manufacturing.net reported on November 9, 2026 that both of those were announced in September 2025.

"This grant will help create benefits for the community that will last decades," said Jeff Messaros, general manager of BWXT Ordnance Tennessee, in the state's release. Gov. Lee said the investment creates opportunity across Northeast Tennessee, including nearly 200 jobs. BWXT, according to the release, has more than 11,000 employees and 19 manufacturing facilities globally.

Site Selection included the project in its November 9, 2026 project bulletin alongside Lockheed Martin's $420 million Camden, Arkansas expansion and Boom Supersonic's $150 million turbine factory in Centennial, Colorado.

What it means for bolting and fastener supply

A $714.5 million manufacturing plant for a federal customer consumes threaded products in two distinct phases, and each phase brings its own specification and paperwork load. The first is construction. A heavy industrial building on an existing site means concrete foundations, anchor bolts cast into those foundations, structural steel with its bolted connections, and equipment pads with anchoring hardware. Structural specifications commonly call out high-strength structural bolt assemblies, while anchor bolts are often specified to ASTM F1554 in one of its grades, with heavy hex nuts and washers to match.

The second phase is process equipment and the mechanical and electrical systems around it. Piping for utilities, process gas, cooling water and ventilation is joined at flanges that take stud bolts and heavy hex nuts. ASTM A193 Grade B7 studs with A194 Grade 2H nuts are the common choice for carbon and alloy steel piping, and stainless grades such as B8 and B8M appear where the piping specification calls for corrosion resistance. Vessels, pumps, blowers, filters and enclosures add hex bolts, cap screws and washers, and some equipment arrives from vendors with its bolting already specified.

Work for a federal nuclear security customer changes the documentation more than the hardware. Federal contracts flow their clauses down to subcontractors and their suppliers, so buyers at the general contractor, the equipment vendors and the plant itself typically ask for material test reports, heat and lot traceability, and certificates of conformance on every lot. Nuclear-related programs often carry quality program requirements that reach into how a fastener supplier controls its own processes and records. Domestic-origin questions about where the steel was melted come up on federally funded construction. In every case the requirements come from the customer's engineer and the contract documents, not from the fastener supplier, whose job is to quote to those requirements and document that the parts meet them.

Timing matters too. A multi-year build with a 10-year production contract behind it means bolting demand that arrives in waves: structural and anchoring hardware first, then piping and equipment bolting as the process systems go in, then maintenance and spares once production starts. Suppliers that can hold lot control and documentation steady across repeat orders, and cover the small, late requirements that surface during commissioning, tend to be the ones that stay on the bid list for the next phase.

Where Cyclone fits

Cyclone Bolt is a Houston, Texas manufacturer of fasteners, threaded products and custom machined components, established in 2016. The company holds AS9100D, AS9120B, ISO 9001:2015, API Spec Q1, API 20E and API 20F certifications, listed on its quality page, supplies DFARS-compliant material, and is registered under CAGE code 8HH90. Cyclone welcomes aerospace and defense conversations of any size, from large contracts to small contracts and one-off projects. Cyclone Bolt is not connected to BWXT, NNSA or the project described in this article.

If a defense or industrial program on your desk needs quoted bolting with the documentation to match, request a quote.

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