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 retired Magnox reactors.
The government announced in March 2017 that it would cancel 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.
Conducting the same process for Magnox Ltd. will entail recruiting an all-new management team and executive board, about 40 people in total, according to NDA spokesman Daniel Gould. “That’s probably the largest part of it,” he said in a telephone interview Monday. “It’s making sure the business runs.”
The other employees of Magnox Ltd. will remain, Gould added.
Magnox Ltd. policies and procedures will also have to be transferred to the NDA, and reviewed to ensure they fit within the new subsidiary model, according to Gould. That will encompass a wide range of documents, from directions for employees to take leave to the process for requesting financing for major projects.
Finally, the process will demand communication and engagement with Magnox staff, along with stakeholders including the government, labor unions, regulators, and residents near Magnox facilities.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority anticipates spending £572 million ($756.2 million) in its fiscal 2017-2018 year on Magnox operations. Nearly all the reactors are scheduled to go into “care and maintenance” mode within the next 10 years, with final site clearance anticipated near the end of this century or the beginning of the next.
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. In its announcement last year, the NDA said cancellation was legally necessary because the scope of work had grown far beyond what four corporate teams bid on.
Still, 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). It said the government failed on multiple levels in the procurement, including an insufficient understanding of the state of cleanup, where decommissioning was behind schedule at six sites.
An independent inquiry on the matter is continuing.
