Korea Utilities & Nuclear EPC Korea nuclear update: SMR momentum builds; accumulate on weakness

Research evidence excerpt

Korea Utilities & Nuclear EPC Korea nuclear update: SMR momentum builds; accumulate on weakness

J P M O R G A N Asia Pacific Equity Research

22 May 2026

Korea Utilities & Nuclear EPC

Korea nuclear update: SMR momentum builds;

accumulate on weakness

Korean nuclear stocks have underperformed the KOSPI over the past month Korean Autos

AC(Doosan Enerbility -4%, Hyundai E&C -12%, KEPCO -15%, and KEPCO E&C Sonny Lee

-19% vs KOSPI +22% m/m) as expectations have cooled amid muted news flow (82-2) 758 5716

on new large-scale nuclear EPC order wins. Hyundai E&C (HDEC) was pressured sonny.lee@jpmorgan.com

by domestic civil engineering construction defect issues (link), despite positive J.P.BranchMorgan Securities (Far East) Limited, Seoul

news flow on SMRs. KEPCO, meanwhile, still faces concerns around volatile

Seri Yoon

commodity prices. The sector may remain weak until visibility on new orders (82-2) 758 5704

improves, and we recommend accumulating on weakness. In terms of positioning, seri.yoon@jpmorgan.com

we prefer nuclear EPC names over KEPCO, with Doosan Enerbility (Doosan) as J.P. Morgan Securities (Far East) Limited, Seoul

Branch

our top pick.

Alan Hon

• Major developments are centered around SMR. In the US, the NRC (852) 2800-8573

completed its environmental assessment with a FONSI (Finding of No alan.hon@jpmorgan.com

J.P. Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Limited/ J.P.

Significant Impact) for Dow and X-energy's four-unit Xe-100 project in Texas, Morgan Broking (Hong Kong) Limited

while the DOE awarded over $94mn funding to companies to accelerate SMR

deployment. HDEC was named as the EPC partner for Holtec's SMR-300

deployment in Rwanda (up to ~5GW), and separately signed an MOU with

TerraPower and HD Hyundai Heavy Industries to collaborate on commercial