Babcock Dounreay Partnership bids for Dounreay nuclear decommissioning contract
Babcock Dounreay Partnership, a consortium of Babcock International Group, CH2M HILL and URS, has been short-listed by the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to bid for the management and operations contract at Dounreay, originally the UK’s centre of fast reactor research and development and now Scotland’s largest nuclear clean-up and demolition project.  Dounreay is currently managed by a Site Licence Company (SLC) called DSRL (Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd).

The competition is progressing and on the 8th November the NDA issued its Invitation to Participate in Dialogue to the two consortia who successfully prequalified in the competition.

Formal Dialogue will take place over a 12-week period, following a period of formal site information gathering during which the participants will have access to the Dounreay site, where they will be able to spend time in discussions with SLC personnel, reviewing information and visiting the site’s key facilities and areas of work. This will assist them in the preparation of their final tender submission.  

It is expected that this stage of the competition process will be completed by April 2011 and the preferred bidder for the contract is expected to be announced by the NDA in late 2011.

Babcock Dounreay Partnership (BDP) was established in March of this year, and followed Babcock’s acquisition of UKAEA Ltd, the commercial arm of the UK Government’s UK Atomic Energy Authority, in November 2009. 

A multi-functional team from across the partner companies has been mobilised under the stewardship of Malcolm Smith (pictured), Nuclear Infrastructure Director, to win the contract.  

Babcock’s Malcolm Smith: “Our three companies offer unrivalled international expertise and experience in nuclear decommissioning.  We also have extensive knowledge and a deep-rooted commitment to the region as a number of our people and their families have worked at Dounreay for many years. We share their determination in safely restoring the Dounreay site and at the same time safeguarding the region’s economic prosperity.”