Sellafield Ltd has taken an important step towards decommissioning a 60-year-old storage pond originally built to store fuel from the Windscale Pile Reactors, by retrieving the very first nuclear fuel out of the pond since the 1960s.

The Pile Fuel Storage Pond (PFSP) was the very first nuclear fuel storage pond constructed at Sellafield and to this day remains the largest open air nuclear storage pond in the world. The pond was built to store nuclear fuel and isotopes from the Windscale Reactors that produced nuclear materials for the defence industry. The Windscales Piles as they are better known never actually generated electricity, but were the precursor to our Calder Hall reactor – the first commercial reactor in the world. Read it all..

Press Release

A multi million pound Nitrogen Generation Plant is to be installed at the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo at Sellafield, replacing the 30 year old existing facility. Read it all..

Decommissioning progress on one of Sellafield’s oldest nuclear plants has taken a giant step forward with three significant new contracts, totaling over £160m, put in place to enable radioactive waste retrievals.

The Pile Fuel Cladding Silo (PFCS) is almost 60 years old and contains over 4000m3 of historic radioactive waste which has to be retrieved from the facility as part of the decommissioning work. Read it all..

Lambert Smith Hampton (LSH) has been appointed as outsourced advisors to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) on its national portfolio which combined with its subsidiary property company, comprises a 2,900 hectare (7,150 acre) estate valued at c£500m. Read it all..

Sellafield Ltd has awarded four-year Decommissioning Framework Agreements to supply a range of services to support decommissioning to the following:

• Astrel (Aker Solutions E&C Ltd., Hertel Ltd., Studsvik UK Ltd.)
• Cumbria Nuclear Solutions Ltd (James Fisher Nuclear Ltd., React Engineering Ltd., Shepley Engineers Ltd., Stobbarts Ltd., WYG Engineering Ltd., along with the international engineering organisation Westinghouse Electric Co UK Ltd.)
• DEV Nuclear (Doosan Power Systems Ltd., Energy Solutions EU Ltd. and Babcock Nuclear Ltd.)
• Nuvia Ltd. Read it all..

Pond One of Sellafield’s historic fuel storage ponds is benefiting from the development of a new sludge retrieval machine to help safely decommission what is a 60 year old facility. The sludge retrieval project has taken nine years of work requiring significant engineering on the plant, as well as the design of bespoke equipment to operate in an underwater, radioactive environment. Read it all..

The UK Government and the Scottish Ministers have approved our new Strategy. This statutory document sets the direction for delivering the nuclear clean-up programme. Read it all..

Press Release

RBG, the leading provider of fabric maintenance and construction support to the global energy industry, has secured a multi-million pound contract to provide a range of third party vendor inspection and quality related services to a number of nuclear facilities.

The three-year contract, awarded by Magnox, Springfields, Sellafield, INS, NNL, LLWR, DSRL and RSRL, has a one-year extension option and is worth approximately £8.8m.

RBG  who was formed in 2005 through the merger of Mach-ten, MacGregor Energy Services and Rigblast Group, will provide qualified discipline engineers, auditors and inspection personnel to ensure all decommissioned and new build works are carried out in accordance with the required standards and specifications. The RBG team will carry out both on and offsite duties at various supplier sites worldwide. The contract will see RBG’s involvement from the initial design review of equipment through to final acceptance and installation.

RBG was awarded the contract based on its experience and its ability to adapt and customise service delivery, whilst taking into account the very specific requirements of the nuclear industry. RBG’s approach included a solid transition plan which detailed all potential risks and corresponding mitigations.

Commenting on the contract, Doug Bolton, RBG’s Quality Services Manager said: “This contract award is a fantastic achievement and testament to the hard work and commitment of all those involved. RBG has many years of experience in the nuclear industry but we also utilise and adapt skill sets developed in other sectors, adding significant value and flexibility to our proposition.”

RBG has been involved in the nuclear industry for over 10 years, during which time it has achieved an unprecedented safety record with an estimated 100,000 man hours incident free. As well as providing inspection personnel for both on- and offsite works, RBG has also provided the nuclear industry with non destructive testing services.

Press release

Babcock has won four multi-million pound contracts to supply radiometric services support at Sellafield, following success in all four bids submitted by the company. The total value of the contracts over their lifetime is estimated at £86million. Read it all..

Dr Todd Wright is to replace Bill Poulson as Managing Director of Sellafield Ltd.

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