October 29 ,Heshi Industrial Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Heshi Technology") announced that it signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Guangdong Zhujiang Chemical Coatings Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhujiang Coatings"), a subsidiary of Guangzhou Industrial Investment Holding Group Co., Ltd., on October 27. Seizing market opportunities from the rapid development and continuous growth of installed capacity in China's nuclear power industry, both parties will jointly expand the nuclear power industrial coatings market, utilizing core technologies to create nuclear-grade protection and collaboratively empower the new journey of operational maintenance in the nuclear power industry.

According to the agreement, both parties will fully integrate their respective advantageous resources in technology, products, market, brand, and services. They will focus on promoting and applying Zhujiang Coatings' products to relevant projects of China National Nuclear Corporation to enhance their market share and brand influence in the nuclear power sector. Regarding research and development cooperation, both parties will establish a specialized collaborative R&D mechanism and jointly form a dedicated research team. This team, composed of assigned technical and market personnel from both sides, will be responsible for technical feasibility analysis, project initiation, joint research and development, sample trial production, and testing certification. Intellectual property rights and benefits from specialized R&D achievements will be jointly owned by both parties.

Multiple Companies Making Strategic Moves, Domestic Process Accelerates

With the rapid development of China's nuclear energy industry, the continuous increase of new nuclear power units, coupled with growing maintenance and upgrade demands of existing nuclear power plants, the market demand for nuclear power coatings - a key material ensuring the safe operation of nuclear power plants - continues to expand. This field has extremely high requirements for product performance, needing special characteristics such as radiation resistance and long-term anti-corrosion, resulting in high technical barriers and thus broad development prospects. From the perspective of the global market landscape, the market share of nuclear power protective coatings is highly concentrated in Asia, North America, and Europe, with these three regions collectively accounting for over 80% of the global market share. Asia is the largest consumer region for nuclear power coatings, primarily driven by large-scale construction and expansion of nuclear power projects in the region; while the North American and European markets mainly rely on maintenance and renewal needs of aging nuclear facilities.

The "14th Five-Year Plan for a Modern Energy System" clearly states that by 2025, the operational installed capacity of nuclear power should reach approximately 70 million kilowatts. According to industry predictions, the operational installed capacity of nuclear power will reach 110 million kilowatts by 2030; by 2035, the total installed capacity is expected to reach 120 million kilowatts. Notably, according to data released by the National Energy Administration in October 2025, China's total nuclear power scale (including operational and under-construction) has exceeded 125 million kilowatts, exceeding the expected development pace. Based on this growth trend, it is projected that by 2030, the nuclear power coatings market size will more than double compared to 2023 and will maintain high levels until 2060.

Facing this high-end coatings market long dominated by international brands like PPG and Sherwin-Williams, domestic companies are accelerating breakthroughs through continuous technological innovation and have achieved substantial progress in multiple core application scenarios. The "Awode" brand series products of CNOOC Changzhou Coatings and Chemical Research Institute, including special functional coatings, nuclear power protective coatings, and marine heavy-duty anti-corrosion coatings, have been successfully applied in major national projects such as the "Guohe No.1" nuclear power plant and the "Deep Sea No.1" energy station, demonstrating the technical reliability of domestic high-end coatings. Simultaneously, Dashey Coatings' development of nuclear power heavy-duty anti-corrosion coatings has achieved core technology independence; Hubei Tieshen New Materials, as a specialized, refined, unique, and new "Little Giant" enterprise, has seen its TSF-800 fluorocarbon topcoat pass a 6000-hour ultraviolet accelerated aging test, with durability performance twice the national standard, enabling widespread application in critical areas such as national strategic petroleum reserve tanks, power transmission towers, and even nuclear power plants, marking that domestic nuclear power coatings have reached international advanced levels in key indicators such as radiation resistance and long-term protection.

Recently, the "Advanced Materials" project application guide for 2025 officially released by the Shanghai Science and Technology Commission includes the project "Development and Application of High-Performance Coating Materials for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems," which directly addresses the global technical bottleneck of tritium permeation faced by new-generation nuclear energy systems, aiming to tackle protective coating technology for new-generation reactors.

Meanwhile, companies are also actively making moves in production capacity layout and market expansion. In September this year, Zhongke Meisi officially signed an investment framework agreement with the Jinta County People's Government in Gansu Province for a nuclear industrial protective coating production line project, planning to build a modern production line with an annual output of 10,000 tons of nuclear protective coatings in the Zhonghe Industrial Park in Jinta County. Upon completion, this project will become the first nuclear industrial protective coating localization base in Northwest China, aiming to achieve independent control of nuclear-grade protective coating materials. Additionally, Beixin Dengta successfully won the bid for the paint procurement project of the first phase of Guangdong Lianjiang Nuclear Power Project in June 2025, demonstrating comprehensive breakthroughs by domestic enterprises in the field of nuclear power coatings.

Powerful Alliance Jointly Builds New Defense Line for Nuclear Power Industry

Against this industry background, the cooperation between Zhujiang Coatings and Heshi Technology holds greater strategic significance. Currently, Zhujiang Coatings and Heshi Technology have successfully cooperated to win bids for China Nuclear Industry Construction Co., Ltd.'s "03 China Nuclear Construction Zhonghe Ersanmen Nuclear Power North Area Canteen and No.1-2 Dormitory Renovation Project Coatings Routine Procurement" project and China Atomic Energy Industry Co., Ltd.'s "Paint" project.

With the signing of this agreement, both parties will establish a strategic partnership. Heshi Technology will invest in establishing Heshi New Material (Zhuhai) Co., Ltd. to conduct in-depth cooperation with Zhujiang Coatings in new material research and development, production, sales, and other aspects. Through resource sharing, business synergy, and technical cooperation in research and development, they will leverage their respective resource advantages to enhance comprehensive competitiveness in the nuclear power field, achieving mutual benefit and common development. This strategic cooperation will positively impact the company's operating performance, market expansion, and brand influence enhancement.

Wang Liping, Chairman of Heshi Technology, stated that both parties will uphold the striving spirit of "crossing the river in the same boat and setting sail," relying on the product platform advantages of Zhujiang Coatings as a state-owned enterprise, and follow the path of "state-owned enterprises creating good products, private enterprises selling good goods" to jointly explore the market. She looks forward to achieving mutual benefit and win-win through this cooperation, enabling both sides to share results and "pick the good apples" in the future market.

This cooperation model fully leverages the respective advantages of both parties. Zhujiang Coatings, as a national coating enterprise with a 90-year history under Guangzhou Industrial Investment Holding Group, has formed six well-known brands and four major product systems. Its anti-corrosion coating products are widely used in nine major industrial fields, and the company's products have been successfully applied in key projects such as Daya Bay and Ling'ao Nuclear Power Stations, establishing an excellent market reputation in the industrial protective coatings field.

As a national-level specialized, refined, unique, and new "Little Giant," Heshi Technology focuses on intelligent high-end equipment manufacturing, with products covering intelligent deburring polishers and other high-end equipment. It has jointly built an innovation R&D platform with the Guangdong Academy of Sciences. The company announced in January 2024 that it has the qualification to provide products (or services) to CNNC headquarters and its subordinate units, laying the foundation for participation in nuclear power project construction. The financial report for the first half of 2025 shows that Heshi Technology achieved operating revenue of 79.4886 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.82%, and net profit of 2.4254 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.20%, demonstrating steady development momentum.

This strategic cooperation will fully leverage Zhujiang Coatings' technical accumulation and product advantages in the nuclear power coatings field, combined with Heshi Technology's market access qualifications and equipment manufacturing capabilities in the nuclear power sector. Through innovative cooperation models such as jointly building R&D platforms and sharing intellectual property, they will jointly promote the localization process of nuclear power coatings, contributing to the independent control of key materials in the nuclear power industry, while also injecting new momentum into the sustainable development of both parties in the nuclear power field.