[W]ood has secured a contract to provide the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) with specialist technical assistance.
Effective immediately, appointment to the new multi-supplier framework will see Wood’s independent nuclear assurance (INA) team providing support for the NDA’s work on site decommissioning and remediation, integrated waste management, spent fuels and nuclear materials.
The contract is for two years with potential for a two-year extension and covers independent peer-review of technical documents, plans, programmes of work and projects; assistance with technology management; and various technical and strategic assessments.
Bob MacDonald, CEO of Specialist Technical Solutions at Wood, said: “We look forward to working with the NDA through this new framework, which covers services that we have been providing to other customers, including the UK Ministry of Defence, for more than 50 years.
“We employ more than 100 scientists and engineers on similar, vital INA work to underpin nuclear safety for the Royal Navy’s submarine service, including recognised experts working on technology developments in nuclear fuel and clad, nuclear materials and chemistry, reactor physics, shielding and criticality, non-destructive examination techniques and advanced structural integrity assessment methods.”
Wood’s work for the NDA also includes:
- Consultancy and technical advice for Radioactive Waste Management Ltd, an NDA company, on the UK’s plans for a geological disposal facility;
- Two framework contracts under the NDA’s Direct Research Portfolio, covering integrated waste management and site remediation; and spent fuel and nuclear materials;
- Research, partly funded by the NDA, into an innovative demonstrator system for cleaning and dismantling highly radioactive rooms or ‘cells’ at Sellafield in Cumbria, UK, Europe’s most complex nuclear site.
Wood’s nuclear business employs more than 1,300 people in the North West of England, mainly at Knutsford and Birchwood in Cheshire and at Sellafield and Whitehaven in Cumbria.
