CRANBERRY TWP —The Westinghouse Electric Co. announced Monday that its NuCrane Manufacturing facility in Hutchinson, Minn., is shipping the first AP1000 polar crane to China.

Eleven flat bed trucks and 15 shipping containers will haul the 300-ton capacity crane from Hutchinson to New Orleans where it will then go to China. Expected arrival at the construction site is late October, according to a company news release.

Ric Perez, Westinghouse president of operations, said in the release that along with the projects in China, the NuCrane factory will support heavy material-handling systems for the AP1000 units to be built in the U.S.

Westinghouse estimates that the four projects in China are creating or sustaining about 5,000 jobs in the United States in 20 states.

Sanmen 1 Nuclear Power Plant is under construction in Sanmen County, Zhejiang Province, China. It is the first of four AP1000 nuclear power plants under construction in China.

Sanmen 1 and 2 are to start generating power in 2013 and 2014, respectively, and Haiyang 1 and 2 are expected to follow in 2014 and 2015.

NuCrane, a joint venture between Westinghouse subsidiary PaR Nuclear of Shoreview, Minn., and Hutchinson Manufacturing of Hutchinson, Minn., was formed in 2009 to make large cranes primarily for the U.S.