Wanted: £1.5 billion clean-up suppliers for Sellafield 02 July 2014

Sellafield is calling for specialist suppliers to help with the job of cleaning up and decommissioning the nuclear site – with an estimated 10 years of work valued at £1.5 billion.

"We are adding a new dimension to our engagement with the supply chain," says chief decommissioning officer Jack DeVine.

"Essentially, we will put in place a commercial mechanism so that we can very quickly and efficiently pull together specialist resources for decommissioning work to supplement our existing workforce," he explains.

DeVine says that, with around 11,000 people already working at Sellafield, there is "nowhere else in the world" with this concentration of nuclear experience and skills.

"However, we've committed to accelerating the clean-up of Sellafield and to do this we need external assistance to carry out specialist work that we can't cover with our own in-house workforce."

The Decommissioning Delivery Partnership (DDP) won't offer a traditional contract but a commercial framework agreement for use as and when.

There is no guaranteed work or committed expenditure, says DeVine, but the rewards to the chosen suppliers could be great.

Sellafield currently receives decommissioning services through a four-year Decommissioning Framework Agreement (DFA2), which was awarded to Astrel, Cumbria Nuclear Solution, DEV Nuclear and Nuvia in June 2011.

"We want to see positive wider economic benefits to the local community from the enormous amount of public money spent at Sellafield," states DeVine.

"To get maximum benefit for every pound spent, we would like our suppliers to commit to the local area and help to grow the local supply chain. This, in turn, should improve the skill base of the local area and create new business opportunities which will be a win-win for everyone."

The formal stage of the acquisition process, when Sellafield gives legal notices in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) and begins pre-qualification of interested contractors, has now begun.

This will be followed by a tendering process at the end of 2014, leading to the announcement of the preferred suppliers in mid 2015.

Brian Tinham

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Sellafield Ltd

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