Cavendish Nuclear has secured a £95 million ($127 million) contract to design and build glove boxes for safe handling of nuclear materials at the Sellafield site in the United Kingdom.
The number of glove boxes covered by the 10-year contract was not specified in press releases from Cavendish Nuclear and the U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which manages operations and environmental remediation at Sellafield.
The glove boxes will be installed in two new facilities used for treatment and management of nuclear materials, according to the releases. Delivery of the initial systems is anticipated early in the next decade, Cavendish said.
“Safe and secure clean-up of the nuclear legacy at Sellafield is our number one priority. Treatment and management of nuclear materials in the appropriate environment is vital,” Martin Chown, supply chain director at Sellafield, said in a prepared statement in both releases. “Placing this contract with Cavendish Nuclear — a highly respected nuclear services provider – is an important step in our mission.”
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and Cavendish Nuclear did not respond by deadline to requests for additional detail regarding the contract.
Cavendish Nuclear is a wholly owned subsidiary of Babcock International, and is licensed to operate 13 nuclear sites in the United Kingdom. It is one of the parent companies to the Cavendish Fluor Partnership, which holds the contract to decommission the nation’s 12 Magnox reactor sites. The U.K. government in September formally issued a notice of termination of the Magnox contract effective on Aug. 31, 2019, nine years earlier than previously scheduled. The move came after the NDA was broadly criticized for its handling of the contract procurement and paid out more than £97 million to two companies that had unsuccessfully bid on the work.
