The United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said Monday it will next year formally take over management of the now privately operated contractor for cleanup of the nation’s Magnox reactor sites.
The government announced in March 2017 that it would cancel the Cavendish Fluor Partnership’s contract to manage Magnox Ltd. as of Aug. 31, 2019, nine years before its intended end date. But it had not previously said which entity would assume responsibility for decommissioning of the 12 facilities on Sept. 1 next year.
Making Magnox Ltd. a wholly owned NDA subsidiary “marks a new approach to managing the 12 Magnox sites but is consistent with a similar change we made at Sellafield in 2016, where the simplified approach is resulting in more efficient decommissioning progress,” NDA Chief Executive David Peattie said in the announcement.
The NDA, the nondepartmental government agency that oversees remediation at all nuclear sites in the United Kingdom, in 2016 assumed management of Sellafield Ltd., operations prime at the same-named nuclear cleanup and processing site in Cumbria. The contractor previously had been run by a joint venture of URS, AREVA, and AMEC.
The 2014 Cavendish Fluor contract for decommissioning 10 Magnox power reactors and two research sites was valued at £6.1 billion ($8 billion) over about 14 years. While the NDA said the contract was being canceled early due to a large change in the scope of work, the agency has faced costly lawsuits and withering criticism over its management of the procurement process.
The NDA last year agreed to pay a total of £97.5 million ($128.1 million) to settle separate lawsuits filed by U.S.-based EnergySolutions and Bechtel, which had unsuccessfully partnered to seek the Magnox contract. In hearing the case on the lawsuit from EnergySolutions (which was also the prior Magnox decommissioning contractor), the U.K. High Court found in 2016 that NDA had “manipulated” the contract decision to keep Cavendish Fluor in consideration.
The U.K. National Audit Office last October said the procurement process cost taxpayers £122 million ($160.2 million). An independent inquiry on the matter is continuing.
