Joint venture company gets the nod on nuclear decommissioning works.
The Doosan Keltbray Consortium has been selected as preferred bidder for vital nuclear decommissioning work at Magnox’s Trawsfynydd Nuclear Power Station in North Wales and mobilisation and preparatory works has commenced. The work, valued at £28 million, is an essential part of delivering the site into its ‘care and maintenance’ (C&M) phase in an accelerated time-scale and has been secured partly as a result of the Consortium’s good track record at similar facilities, such as Bradwell Power Station in Essex.
The Trawsfynydd contract covers the de-planting and demolition of the site’s former cooling ponds complex – which was used to store and cool used nuclear fuel elements after they were removed from the reactors. The project will involve dismantling and removing pipework, tanks and cooling equipment – some of which has become radioactively contaminated during the station’s operational life and early phases of decommissioning.
The Doosan Keltbray Consortium team will carry out extensive survey work before agreeing the detailed programme of work with Magnox, which operates the site, on behalf of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).
The contract forms a key part of Magnox’s programme to deliver Trawsfynydd into a state of ‘care and maintenance’ by December 2016 – significantly earlier than originally planned. At this point, the plant will be left in a passively safe state while the natural process of radioactive decay takes place, reducing levels of radioactivity to a point where the site can be finally cleared by conventional demolition. Trawsfynydd will be one of the UK’s first two nuclear sites, alongside Bradwell in Essex, to enter into ‘care and maintenance’.
Peter Burns, Magnox Site Director at Trawsfynydd, Said: “Decommissioning the ponds complex is one of the major projects on the site and its completion will signify a major milestone in our journey to care and maintenance.”
“The Doosan Keltbray Consortium looks forward to continuing our long history of supporting Magnox and delivering the safe and efficient decommissioning of the cooling ponds facility at Trawsfynyyd. This project will provide employment for up to 100 nuclear-trained and certified operatives and draws on the experience of previous decommissioning projects completed by Doosan Babcock and Keltbray across the Magnox fleet,” said Doosan Babcock’s Nuclear Service Director, Cameron Gilmour.
