Contract for Dounreay decommissioning

Responsibility for the decommissioning, demolition and clean-up of the UK's Dounreay nuclear site has passed to the Babcock Dounreay Partnership consortium, which has now taken over ownership of Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd.

Responsibility for the decommissioning, demolition and clean-up of the UK's Dounreay nuclear site has passed to the Babcock Dounreay Partnership (BDP) consortium, which has now taken over ownership of Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd (DSRL).

Dounreay (Image: DSRL)

DSRL manages and operates, on behalf of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), the Dounreay site in Scotland, which was the UK's centre for experimental fast breeder research and development from 1954 until 1994. 

Following legal, contractual and regulatory clearance, BDP took over ownership of DSRL on 1 April and it is now a wholly-owned subsidiary. With the transfer of ownership of DSRL, the NDA formally awarded BDP the contract to manage the decommissioning, demolition and clean-up of the site. Under the contract - the first to be signed by the NDA to complete the demolition of a redundant nuclear site in the UK - BDP will remove Dounreay's landmark dome and other buildings.

Key features of BDP's site closure plan include a new 'target cost incentive fee contract arrangement' (involving sharing risk with the NDA), an accelerated closure date and a new project-focused methodology.

NDA chairman Stephen Henwood called the contract award a "significant milestone" for the NDA. He added, "We have also been able to reduce the decommissioning period by potentially up to 16 years, from 2038 to as early as 2022 representing savings to the UK economy well in excess of £1 billion ($1.6 billion)."

Roger Hardy, the new managing director of DSRL, said, "We will be setting new standards for decommissioning delivery, safety and environmental protection. We want to establish Dounreay as the European reference site for nuclear decommissioning and site closure."

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News