Amec Areva team loses Sellafield role
13 Jan 2015
The government this morning confirmed that Nuclear Management Partners (NMP), a consortium of Amec Foster Wheeler, Areva and Aecom-owned URS is to be stripped of its role running the decommissioning of Sellafield.
In a statement to the House of Commons, energy and climate change secretary Ed Davey said the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) had opted to streamline Sellafield’s management structure by dropping NMP’s role as a Parent Body Organisation (PBO).
Sellafield is…less well suited to the transfer of full site-wide responsibility to the private sector
Energy secretary Ed Davey
It is hoped this will help rein in delays and overspends in the Cumbria site’s decommissioning, which were heavily criticised in a Parliamentary report last year.
“Sellafield is the biggest and most complex nuclear site in Europe, so it’s right that we keep the way it’s being managed under constant review,” said Davey.
“It is now clear that Sellafield’s complexity and technical uncertainties present significantly greater challenges than other NDA sites, and it is therefore less well suited to the transfer of full site-wide responsibility to the private sector via a PBO structure.”
Sellafield is operated by Site Licensed Company (SLC) Sellafield Ltd, and since 2008 has been owned by NMP acting as the PBO. It consumes 60% of the NDA’s £3 billion annual budget.
Under the new arrangements announced today, ownership of Sellafield Ltd will transfer back to the NDA, a non-department public body that reports to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
A key feature of the new arrangements is for a “strategic partner” to be sought from the private sector to advise and assist the Sellafield Ltd executive team, in a management structure similar to those successfully used on the construction of Crossrail and the London 2012 Olympics.
“This means the private sector becomes a supplier to the SLC (Sellafield Ltd) rather than a parent of it,” said a statement from DECC today.
NMP general manager Iain Irving said he was disappointed by the government and NDA’s decision.
“NDA has made it very clear that it is the contractual model that it is being revised and has acknowledged the progress made by NMP over the last six years,” said Irving.
“During NMP’s tenure of the contract, we have achieved savings to the UK taxpayer of over £650 million and we have invested around £23 million from our fee in West Cumbria, making a real difference to the local community.”
DECC said the PBO structure would continue to be used at other UK nuclear decommissioning sites such as Dounreay, and that NMP would remain in its role at Sellafield during a transition period over the next 12-15 months.
