Amentum-led global nuclear industry consortium, Nuclear Management Partners (NMP), was awarded a multi-billion pound contract to manage and operate the Sellafield site in West Cumbria, England, UK. The site is one of the UK’s largest industrial and construction sites and widely regarded as the world’s most complex and challenging nuclear site. The site has 1,200 buildings, over 200 contain nuclear inventory and 100 are categorised as being equivalent to a nuclear reactor in terms of potential hazard and security status. There are more than 450 ongoing engineering and construction projects with 19 valued at over £100 million. NMP operated the site from 2008-2016.
Leaders and specialist from NMP’s parent organisations were strategically deployed to coach and train incumbent Sellafield employees whilst also introducing managerial and technical innovations to address immediate and emerging issues. This led to enhanced and sustainable capability on the site and a positive turnaround in performance.
Project Highlights
- Developed and produced the Sellafield Plan providing UK Government with a much better understanding of the true extent of challenges and risks associated with the site
- Undertook decommissioning planning of the first power producing nuclear reactor – Calder Hall
- Changed the site’s safety culture resulting in the best ever overall safety performance for 2 consecutive years
- Made the first retrieval in 50 years of spent fuel and radioactive sludges from legacy storage ponds
- Achieved 70% reduction of radioactive inventory in one of the legacy storage ponds
- Reprocessed over 1000 tonnes of Plutonium
- Removed 2,300MT of asbestos – Europe’s largest asbestos removal project
- Removed 40,000 fuel rods from defueling of reactors,
- Generated efficiency savings of £715 million
- Accelerated high hazard reduction through innovations in waste management
- Created a pipeline of Executive leaders that continue to innovate and serve the UK and American Industry