Viaro Energy partners with Terrestrial Energy to assess molten salt reactor technology for UK industrial decarbonization
London-based independent oil and gas company Viaro Energy has signed a memorandum of understanding with US-based Terrestrial Energy to evaluate deploying Integral Molten Salt Reactor technology for industrial energy applications. The agreement, signed in 2024, covers potential sites and commercial uses across the UK and international markets.
The two companies are now assessing regulatory, economic, policy, and siting considerations — a process that could point toward supplying low-carbon power to energy-intensive industries and AI data centers.
MOU sets out scope of assessment
Viaro Energy and Terrestrial Energy formalized their partnership through a memorandum of understanding in 2024. The agreement focuses on Terrestrial Energy’s Integral Molten Salt Reactor — the IMSR — a design that uses liquid fuel instead of the solid fuel rods found in conventional reactors.
Gas has supplied heat and electricity to refineries, petrochemical plants, and offshore platforms — reliably and at scale — because it’s already on hand.
Both companies are working through a structured assessment covering regulatory, economic, policy, and siting factors. The goal is to figure out where IMSR units could realistically be deployed — in the UK and internationally — and what commercial applications they could actually serve.
Clean, firm power for AI data centers and energy-intensive industrial facilities sits high on the list of potential use cases. Demand in these sectors is climbing fast, and reliable low-carbon energy is getting harder to source.
Viaro CEO Francesco Mazzagatti put the appeal plainly: “Its ability to provide continuous, low-carbon electricity and industrial heat makes it particularly compelling for sectors where reliability, scale and energy security are non-negotiable.” For industrial operators, those aren’t abstract priorities — they’re day-to-day requirements.
Why oil and gas companies are turning to nuclear
It might seem like an odd move for an oil and gas company to explore nuclear energy. The logic gets clearer, though, when you look at how these companies power their own operations.
Historically, oil and gas producers have used the commodities they extract to meet their own energy needs. Gas has supplied heat and electricity to refineries, petrochemical plants, and offshore platforms — reliably and at scale — because it’s already on hand. That’s been the obvious choice for decades.
That’s changing. Pressure to cut industrial carbon emissions is pushing companies toward alternatives, but swapping gas for intermittent renewables isn’t straightforward. The International Atomic Energy Agency has noted that relying on intermittent renewables “requires a massive expansion of the grid, affecting its stability and resulting in increased system and firming costs” — factors that are “not aligned with the energy requirements of industry.”
Advanced nuclear offers a different path. It produces no CO2 during operation and carries one of the lowest lifecycle carbon footprints of any power source. For industries that need baseload energy around the clock, that combination is hard to pass up.
Industrial Advanced Nuclear Consortium identifies four priority scenarios
Viaro isn’t alone in exploring this space. A newly formed Industrial Advanced Nuclear Consortium — whose founding members span oil and gas, mining, and steel — is working to evaluate nuclear energy for industrial process heat and electricity.
The consortium recently published a report identifying four high-potential application scenarios: maritime heat and power; nuclear cogeneration for refining, petrochemicals, and LNG; remote power and heat for oil and gas and mining; and electricity-intensive industrial loads. The report describes how modular nuclear solutions could be deployed “at varying scales and environments, from remote, off-grid operations to large industrial hubs, delivering high-reliability baseload energy — at the same time as reducing exposure to volatile fuel costs and grid instability.”
One of the consortium’s central aims is practical: bring industrial end users together to define what they actually need, rather than leaving reactor developers to design in isolation. If nuclear is going to serve industrial applications, it needs to be built around real operational requirements — not theoretical ones. The target is ambitious. The consortium wants nuclear to be a viable option for industrial projects by 2030.
Broader market context: SMR developers target industrial demand
The Viaro-Terrestrial Energy partnership sits within a wider shift in how small modular reactor developers are positioning their technology. SMRs and micro modular reactors are being designed with the flexibility to be sited near industrial facilities — a real departure from the large, centralized plants that defined the previous generation of nuclear power.
Houston-based SMR developer ZettaJoule has stated it’s designing its first commercial reactor specifically to supply heat and power to oil and gas operations, citing an oil refinery as a potential deployment location. That’s a concrete sign of how the industrial nuclear market is starting to take shape.
For Viaro, the nuclear partnership fits alongside its existing emissions-reduction work. The company holds working interests representing up to 9% of UK gas production at peak and already collaborates with operating joint-venture partners to review environmental performance across its portfolio. Mazzagatti has been clear about how the company sees the relationship between energy security and decarbonization: “Energy security and decarbonization should reinforce one another.” Advanced nuclear, in his view, is positioned to serve both — not just established industries, but also fast-growing demand sources like AI data centers.
Deployment in the UK and beyond
The Viaro-Terrestrial Energy MOU is an early-stage assessment, not a construction commitment. The two companies are evaluating whether IMSR technology is technically, commercially, and regulatorily viable for industrial deployment in the UK and beyond.
The broader context matters here. Oil and gas companies face a real decarbonization challenge that intermittent renewables alone may not solve. Advanced nuclear — with firm, low-carbon output and the potential to be sited near industrial facilities — is being assessed as a credible alternative by a growing number of players across the sector.
The Industrial Advanced Nuclear Consortium’s 2030 target sets a clear timeline for when industrial nuclear needs to be viable. Whether the technology, the regulation, and the commercial models align by then remains an open question. For now, partnerships like this one are how the industry is trying to find out.
Kelly is an experienced writer with 15 years of experience exploring the big stories that shape our world, from tech breakthroughs and space exploration to climate, energy, and the fascinating quirks of science. She has a talent for turning complex ideas into sharp, memorable insights that stay with readers long after they’ve finished reading.
