Holtec International said Monday it has completed the acquisition of the retired Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey for decommissioning.
The announcement was no surprise, after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last month approved the transfer of the site’s reactor and spent-fuel storage licenses from then-owner Exelon to the New Jersey energy technology company.
This is the second completed deal of its type, following NorthStar Group Services’ acquisition in January of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant from Entergy. In each case, the new owner assumes all responsibility for decommissioning, site restoration, and spent fuel management at its new property. It also gets the decommissioning trust fund to pay for cleanup, along with an anticipated source of profit when the work is done.
Exelon closed the boiling-water reactor plant last September after nearly five decades of service. Holtec says it can transfer all of the site’s spent fuel into dry storage within two-and-a-half year and wrap up decommissioning within a decade.
It has estimated decommissioning will cost $885 million. The decommissioning trust for Oyster Creek was valued at $980 million as of June 2018.
Holtec is keeping on over 200 plant employees to support decommissioning. Additional personnel with special skill sets will join them as decommissioning proceeds, according to a Holtec press release.
This is the first of several nuclear power plants Holtec aims to buy for decommissioning. The others are the newly shuttered Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts; the Palisades Power Plant in Michigan, due for closure in 2022; and the Indian Point Energy Center in upstate New York, which should shut down in 2021.
