The nuclear expertise of Germany's Jülich Research Centre (Forschungszentrum Jülich) and the Experimental Reactor Consortium GmbH (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Versuchsreaktor, AVR) are to be combined into a new enterprise.

Russia's Petrozavodskmash has completed the manufacture of a serial batch of modified TUK-109T containers for the transport of used nuclear fuel from RBMK-1000 reactors. Petrozavodskmash is a branch of AEM Technologies, a subsidiary of Atomenergomash.

Japan expects to start the retrieval of fuel debris from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2021, the executive director of the Nuclear Damage Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation Corporation said yesterday. Three of the plant's six reactors suffered core meltdowns in the March 2011 accident, leaving melted nuclear fuel debris on the floor of their containment vessels.

EOn and Vattenfall have signed an agreement to cooperate in the decommissioning and dismantling of their jointly owned nuclear power plants in Germany.

Some 11 tonnes of "breeder" material that had been in storage at the Dounreay site in Scotland has now been transported to the Sellafield site in northern England. A further 33 tonnes of breeder material remains within the Dounreay Fast Reactor and will be transported to Sellafield later.

Sellafield Limited has awarded a contract worth up to £50 million ($78 million) to Darchem Engineering Limited for stainless steel storage boxes to store historic radioactive waste retrieved from a silo at the UK's Sellafield site. It follows the award of a similar contract earlier this month to Metalcraft.

An organizational restructuring of UK company Magnox Ltd as it streamlines its operating model will lead to a reduction of up to 1600 staff across its UK sites over the period to September 2016.

The first two vaults of the new low-level waste disposal facility at the UK's Dounreay site has begun accepting waste. Up to four additional vaults could be constructed at the facility.

Tata Steel is set to be awarded a £20 million ($31 million) contract for the provision of 'packages and gamma gates' for decommissioning operations at the UK's Sellafield site.

The third mission of international experts assembled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has published its final report on decommissioning progress at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan.

Declining profitability and increased costs have forced Swedish utility Vattenfall to decide to close units 1 and 2 of the Ringhals nuclear power plant earlier than previously planned. The decision would see the units shut between 2018 and 2020, rather than around 2025.