Sellafield Ltd has awarded Bechtel Cavendish Nuclear Solutions a two-year contract extension and added work to the Pile Fuel Cladding Silo project at the West Cumbrian nuclear complex.
The team has been on the project since 2012, designing and installing access doors and remote-handling equipment to retrieve decades-old nuclear waste from sealed compartments in a building described as one of Europe’s most hazardous.
The waste consists of 3,200 cubic meters of radioactive cladding – pieces of metal tubes used for uranium fuel rods in some of the UK’s earliest nuclear reactors.
The mission of the project is to deliver a system that allows Sellafield to retrieve the waste, package it safely, and dispose of it permanently.
The new scope calls for:
Procurement, manufacture, preparation, installation, and commissioning of additional equipment to allow Sellafield to retrieve waste from the remaining five silo compartments, once the first compartment has been emptied;
Extension and growth of off-site testing facilities, to develop future systems for use on the retrievals plant; and
Establishment of a new, centralised control building for all silo monitoring and waste retrieval operations.
Clive Billiald, Bechtel programme manager, said: “This award continues our very special relationship with our Sellafield colleagues, which has enabled us to consistently deliver ahead of time and under budget. I am incredibly proud of our collective team, who thoroughly deserve the trust placed in them.”
Fran Worthington, Cavendish Nuclear’s Sellafield business unit director, said: “This extension reinforces the strong collaborative working relationship we have with Sellafield and our partner and is testament to our delivery performance on one of the four most hazardous buildings in Western Europe.”
