Sellafield Ltd has selected joint venture a.m.a as the preferred bidder for the Silos Direct Encapsulation (SDP) project at nuclear reprocessing site Sellafield.
a.m.a is a special purpose joint venture created to compete for this contract. It consists of the French company Areva, and British companies Mace and Atkins. When complete, SDP will process nuclear waste recovered from the Magnox Swaf Storage Silo, one of the oldest nuclear waste silos on the Sellafield site, and package it to make it ready for long term storage.
The firms will now enter a period of preferred bidder clarification and confirmation of commitment whilst the contract is finalised and all legal processes are completed. The final contract award will require approval from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).
Successful completion of the SDP project will be vital to completing Sellafield Ltd’s primary focus of safely cleaning up and decommissioning all high hazard facilities on the site. This, it says, makes the announcement of a.m.a as preferred bidder a significant milestone.
Sellafield Ltd chief projects officer Scott Reeder said: “The market recognised the challenges presented by this important and complex project and two strong joint venture organisations emerged to tender for the contract. Sellafield Ltd was very pleased with the quality, capability and commitment offered by each of these organisations.”
Sellafield Ltd is the company responsible for safely delivering decommissioning of the UK’s nuclear legacy as well as fuel recycling and the management of low, high and intermediate level nuclear waste activities on behalf of the NDA.
