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£30 MILLION ALLIANCE TO REMOVE BREEDER FUEL FROM DFR  15 August 2002
The Alliance Partners
 

Strachan & Henshaw  Ltd

Maintaining a core resource of over 500 qualified engineering staff and industry standard modeling, analysis and integrated manufacturing and test facilities, Strachan & Henshaw (S&H) has been a principal equipment supplier to the UK nuclear industry for over fifty years, and maintain a site presence at over a third of the UK’s nuclear facilities, maintaining our own, and other contractors’ equipment on a daily basis.

S&H has extensive resources committed to definition, assessment, design and delivery of high integrity engineering handling equipment that demands consideration of mechanical, electrical, electronic, software, hydraulic, pneumatic systems and human factors. Working within integrated project teams, our engineering specialists contribute to the design and manufacture process on a concurrent basis, ensuring we provide the most appropriate solution for our clients.

S&H is working as part of the BFR Alliance alongside ENTECH, our joint venture company with SGN of France, who maintain strong ties with the local community. In recent years S&H has completed a wide range of projects for the domestic and international nuclear industries, including process solutions for BNFL, Station Support and equipment upgrade for Magnox and British Energy, and contaminated waste handling solutions for nuclear facilities across the UK.

Through our participation in the BFR Alliance, S&H is completing its 40 year commitment to the Dounreay area, and is proud to be a part of UKAEA’s commitment to return Dounreay to a green-field site.

S&H is a member of the Weir Group of companies, working together to create engineering solutions which help our customers deliver processes important to society.

Tel. 0117 975 2972  Email tom.abba@sandh-ltd.com Website www.sandh-ltd.com

Atkins

Atkins is one of the world’s leading providers of professional, technology-based consultancy and support services, with offices in the UK, Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and the Americas. Our portfolio of skills embraces engineering consultancy, design, management consultancy, IT, facilities management, environmental services, project finance, project services, outsourcing and property services. We work with public and private sector clients in a range of markets, including nuclear, power, rail, roads, telecoms, aviation, water, process, health and defence.

Atkins in Caithness
Atkins is a member of the recently announced UKAEA assembled Alliance dealing with one of the major projects in the decommissioning of the Dounreay Fast Reactor, the Breeder Fuel Removal Alliance. This is a multi-disciplinary, multi-million pound project extending over several years.

Atkins recent major presence on Dounreay began in 1996 with the establishment of the Dounreay Management Support Contract.  At its peak over 70 Atkins staff were based on site covering all aspects of site work from specialist Safety and Environmental Management, to Project Engineers and Supervisors involved in the day to day management of site projects. Since the end of the MSC contract, Atkins have maintained a presence of over 30 staff at Dounreay, including 15+ Project Planning staff from Atkins Faithful & Gould, along with visiting teams  in sizes as required to undertake specific tasks on behalf of the client.  These have ranged from Engineering Substantiation to calculations on wind dispersion of aerial discharges; and from Availability, Reliability and Maintainability (ARM) studies to Management Consulting on Human Resource Factors on site.

In keeping with our commitment to the area, Atkins is pursuing the establishment of a local office in Thurso.  Atkins are also actively involved with the local community, and in the last few years have assisted by funding the provision of the palliative care room at Caithness General Hospital in Wick, and have been one of the principal sponsors for the recently resurrected Caithness Civic Awards Scheme.

Another key area where Atkins has considerable knowledge and experience is in the planning history in Caithness, and in particular to Dounreay. This experience includes reporting to the Council on planning submissions, and explaining complicated issues in terms that lay members are able to recognise and understand.

Other recent work in Caithness, for Highland Council and CASE, has included project management of the Wick Pulteneytown Heritage scheme, working closely with local councillors and officials; assisting with the preparation of the Caithness economic strategy; and advice to the Highlands and Islands Strategic Transport Partnership on the transportation strategy for the north.

Atkins in Scotland
Atkins operate from 8 other offices in Scotland – in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, East Kilbride, Falkirk, Glasgow, Grangemouth, Inverness and Stornoway, providing a full range of consultancy services to our many clients. 

 Atkins has operated in the north of Scotland for some 20 years and, amongst other activities, have taken over the business and staff of the Common Services Agency to provide architectural and building maintenance services to the government (Health Service and Government offices). Similar activities are undertaken from the other office bases in Scotland.

The Aberdeen office is one of the other main offices in the North of Scotland, with a smaller subsidiary office in Inverness and a combined staff of 30 between the two offices. This office forms part of the Design, Environment and Engineering division of Atkins.

The main focus of work from the Aberdeen and Inverness offices involves architectural design for a wide spectrum of clients in the north, in particular Health and public services and works for major private development companies.

Atkins Press Office contact:  Andrew Wills   tel: 01372 752897, e-mail: andrew.wills@atkinsglobal.com

Framatome ANP
 Nuclear industry – No. 1 in the world

In January 2001, the Framatome Group and Siemens Power Generation created Framatome ANP, which combines their nuclear businesses. Framatome ANP is an Areva and Siemens company. AREVA has a 66% shares and Siemens 34%.

 Framatome ANP has 13,000 employees in every continent and its revenues amount to more than 2,6 billion Euro. It is the No.1 in the world for nuclear plant construction projects, fuel manufacturing and services.

The structure of Framatome ANP combines management by business group, at worldwide level, with management at regional level, in France (including support of UK), Germany and the United States, thus ensuring that our resources are close to the customers.

Framatome ANP is modernizing plants in Central and Eastern Europe (VVER), by bringing them into line with Western European safety standards, and upgrading plants in Europe, America and Asia.

The nuclear services business group covers all services after the delivery of a new nuclear plant: monitoring installation, upgrading, repairing and maintaining components and instrumentation and control systems. It is also in charge of dismantling operations, waste management and dry spent fuel storage for shutdown nuclear plants, research reactors and laboratories.

 Framatome ANP has the largest capacity in the world for manufacturing nuclear plant equipment and components. In its factories in France, it has designed and manufactured 75 reactor vessels and closure heads, 266 steam generators, 67 pressurizers, 220 reactor coolant sets, 4 500 control rod assemblies and in-core instrumentation systems for nuclear plants in Europe, South Africa, the United States and Asia.

Corporate Communications      Anne Wallet  Tel.: +33 147 96 40 34    E-Mail: annie.wallet@framatome-anp.com
www.framatome-anp.com

ALSTEC

ALSTEC is a major engineering company specializing in the provision of a complete engineering service to fuel cycle and nuclear plant operators alike. ALSTEC's service offering includes equipment supply, engineering design, plant operations and maintenance, plant refurbishment and repair, and decommissioning.

ALSTEC has supplied major items of plant and equipment to Dounreay, see below for details. Today, ALSTEC is a major on-site contractor assisting UKAEA to fulfill the particulars of the Dounreay Site Restoration Plan.

ALSTEC is involved as the main contractor for Operations & Maintenance Services on the Prototype Fast Reactor (PFR); we are the operations contractor to the Alkali Metals Residues Removal (AMRR) project and the DFR Ponds Decommissioning project; and we are providing operations and design expertise to the Breeder Fuel Removal (BFR) project. Working closely with the Dounreay radiological protection function we are expanding our health physics capability at Dounreay. A wide variety of engineering design studies and concepts are provided by our dedicated design team at Whetstone.

ALSTEC is a key member of both the AMRR Alliance and the BFR Alliance.

As is our intent, the execution of our Dounreay obligations employs predominantly local people and, since the start of the PFR Operations & Maintenance contract, we have supported inward investment to the Dounreay region in the following ways:

ALSTEC currently employs 52 permanent and 1 agency staff; 47 of whom were recruited from the local community. The balance of staff are ALSTEC employees brought in on long-term arrangements who are resident in the community around the Dounreay site.

ALSTEC have invested in both contract-specific skills training and individual personal development training. Examples include the training of two health physics monitors, training of one safety officer and project / management training in support of career development - (all of the individuals concerned are Dounreay locals). A 'ball-park' estimate of ALSTEC's contribution to training in the last 3 years would be £350,000.

ALSTEC has developed good relations with the North Highland College - Thurso, from whom we recruited 10 students upon completion of their Decommissioning course. These individuals are now working on the AMRR Test Rig at Janetstown.

Included in the permanent staff numbers are three locally recruited Apprentices, now in their final year of HND course at the North Highland College - Thurso. Links with Caithness and Sutherland Enterprise (CASE) have enabled a small level of financial support to be secured. A further three Apprentices will be started in September of this year.

Local Job Centres are contacted whenever a vacancy exists to ensure that the local community is aware of, and can respond to opportunities.

PR contact is Mr. John Smith    Office Tel: 0116 202 5017   Mobile Tel: 0780 177 3737   Fax: 0116 201 5179

SGN AT DOUNREAY

The SGN company (wholly owned subsidiary of COGEMA (AREVA Group)) was founded in 1952 for the design and construction of the first nuclear fuel cycle facilities in France. Since then, SGN has become a leading engineering company worldwide in the nuclear field, with extensive expertise in spent fuel reprocessing, spent fuel and radioactive waste management, nuclear facilities decontamination and dismantling, and nuclear measurements.

SGN's engineers and technicians bring a variety of skills and expertise to all of SGN's activities:

technical consulting to nuclear operators during the decision-making process, including project definition, planning and feasibility;

conceptual and detailed design of facilities and facility modifications;

facility construction and modifications, from equipment selection and supply to construction supervision,

project management services, including design reviews and cost, schedule and quality control,

operator support for facility testing and start-up personnel training.

SGN is ISO 9001 and CEFRI certified.

In UK, SGN is represented by ENTECH (European Nuclear Technologies, a Joint Venture Company with Strachan and Henshaw Limited) with offices in Bristol, Aldermaston and Dounreay. Dounreay office is occupied by up to 10 employees.

A part from the BFR project, SGN is currently performing for UKAEA Dounreay a Conceptual Design Study on vitrification of waste using the cold crucible technology.