24 Jan (NucNet): The UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) will next month begin an eight-month period of formal dialogue with four consortia considering bids for a multi-billion-pound competition to run 12 historic nuclear sites.
The NDA, formed by the Energy Act of 2004 to deliver the decommissioning and clean-up of the UK’s civil nuclear legacy, said the formal dialogue will give the four prospective bidders the opportunity to “gather information during a series of face-to-face meetings”.
Site visits are also being organised, enabling the prospective bidders to see at first hand the challenges that will help them form their tender proposals, the NDA said.
Following an invitation to take part in the dialogue, the NDA has confirmed the four consortia who plan to proceed are:
- Reactor Site Solutions (comprising of Bechtel and EnergySolutions);
- The Babcock Fluor Partnership;
- CAS Restoration Partnership (CH2M Hill, Areva, Serco);
- UK Nuclear Restoration Ltd (AMEC/Atkins).
Valued at around seven billion pounds (8.3 billion euro, 11 billion US dollars) in total, the contract for ownership of Magnox Ltd and Research Sites Restoration Ltd (RSRL) represents one of the UK's largest public procurement exercises.
Nine of the Magnox sites in Scotland, Wales and England are nuclear power stations that have stopped generating and are in various stages of decommissioning, while one, Wylfa on Anglesey, is still generating electricity but is expected to close by 2014. Magnox Ltd is currently owned by EnergySolutions.
The two RSRL sites at Harwell, Oxfordshire, and Winfrith, Dorset, are former research centres that housed some of the UK’s earliest experimental reactors, but are now well advanced in their decommissioning programmes. RSRL is currently owned by Babcock International Group.
The competition will run over two years, with completion scheduled for 2014, and see ownership of Magnox Ltd and RSRL transfer to the successful bidder.
The NDA said the company that takes over the competition will take forward a decommissioning programme worth four to five billion pounds over the next seven years and almost two billion pounds for the following seven years.
Following the dialogue phase, designed to help bidders prepare detailed proposals, the NDA will issue an invitation to submit final tenders.
The NDA does not directly manage the UK’s nuclear sites, but oversees the work through contracts with specially designed companies known as site licence companies. The NDA determines the overall strategy and priorities for managing decommissioning.
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