29 Sep (NucNet): The company that operates the Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria, northwest England, has awarded a multi-million-pound engineering, procurement and construction contract to deliver the Box Encapsulation Plant (BEP) project.
Sellafield Ltd said the contract, awarded to a three-way joint venture comprising of Jacobs, Amec and Balfour Beatty, will be worth from £240 million to £336 million over up to four years.
When complete the BEP will treat nuclear waste recovered from the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo (MSSS), immobilise it and prepare it for long-term storage. The BEP might also be used to process waste recovered during the decommissioning of other significant Sellafield facilities including the Magnox Storage Pond and the Pile Fuel Storage Pond.
The joint venture will be responsible for the complete life cycle of the scheme from design, engineering, procurement, installation and construction management through to commissioning and handover.
The Sellafield site comprises of a range of nuclear facilities, including redundant facilities associated with early defence work, as well as operating facilities associated with the Magnox reprocessing programme, the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp), the Sellafield mixed oxide fuel plant and a range of waste treatment plants.
It began life in the early 1950s making plutonium for nuclear weapons, and later that decade became the location of Calder Hall, the world’s first commercial nuclear power station.
