Amec, Balfour Beatty & Areva win Sellafield 'highly active...

A partnership between three firms – Amec, Balfour Beatty and Areva – has been awarded a contract to define, design and cost a new “highly active effluent facility” earmarked for construction at Sellafield nuclear park in Cumbria. The aim of the two-year “early contractor engagement phase” contract is to lay foundations for the procurement, construction and commissioning of a facility capable of storing safely radioactive wastes arising from nuclear processing. Improving the safety of radioactive waste storage at Sellafield is a key priority of the nuclear park's decommissioning and management strategies. Current storage arrangements have been the subject of repeated criticism from NGOs. According to Amec the new facility will include “a series of high integrity highly active storage tanks in a seismically qualified reinforced concrete building”.