Performance and
In 2008 the Nuclear Decommissioning
Authority (NDA) appointed Nuclear
Management Partners (NMP) as the
Parent Body Organisation for Sellafield
Ltd. The consortium of three world
class organisations, URS, Amec Foster
Wheeler and Areva, was tasked with
bringing resources and processes
from across the globe to improve
the performance of the world’s most
challenging nuclear site – Sellafield.
The increasing demand for accelerated decommissioning by HM Government resulted in the development of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) in 2005. The NDA’s main priority was to clean-up and reduce the hazards at Sellafield. It was accepted that, making improvements on a site suffering from ageing infrastructure, a poor record of the historic waste inventory generated through the days of the Cold War and a weakened planning and project management capability, was an enormously difficult task and would not to be achieved over night. However, since 2008, under the leadership of NMP, the Sellafield workforce has delivered a succession of site records and first time achievements, with a particularly notable improvement in overall performance in the last 18 months. Some of the highlights include the removal of radioactive waste from ponds and silos for the first time in decades, the first returns of high level waste to the countries of origin, completion of the
overseas fuel reprocessing programme and generation of over £700m of efficiency savings. For the last two years, the Sellafield workforce has consecutively achieved its best ever overall safety levels. 2014 also saw the largest ever entry of apprentices at 170 and the planned 2015 intake of 200 young people will more than treble the figure in 2008 when NMP first arrived at Sellafield. NMP has continued to invest in the local community, with almost £25m now donated from its fee to charitable organisations and major socio-economic projects.
It has however, not been an easy journey. There are areas where better and faster progress was expected and hoped for, particularly in the major projects area, where inherent uncertainty over historic waste inventories has resulted in engineering complexities and associated cost increases. While NMP has made good progress in understanding the technical challenges faced by these major projects, cost and timescale of delivery has inevitably been an issue of concern.
Over the six years of the contract, however, NMP has created an environment in which Sellafield Ltd has had the resources, processes and support in place to build capability and make significant progress. This capability has enabled the site to deliver tangible improvements across almost all areas, as detailed later in this document.
Stakeholders understandably have a strong desire for demonstrable progress at Sellafield, given the level of public investment that the site demands. This year’s record performances and best ever safety levels are testament to the strides that have been made at Sellafield. As the site transitions to the NDA’s new management arrangement, NMP is proud to have built the foundations for sustained success.
“We recognise the achievements of the site in the last six years
and thank NMP for their support in stewarding Sellafield through
a crucial phase of delivery and planning.”
January 2015Rt Hon Edward Davey MP
The UK’s nuclear industry began at Sellafield and the site is home to the
nation’s first full-scale nuclear reactors, the Windscale Piles, built for national
defence purposes. It is also home to the world’s first commercial-scale nuclear
power station, Calder Hall, and houses two nuclear fuel storage ponds from the
1940/50s and two nuclear waste silos also built 60-70 years ago.
Sellafield
The world’s most
challenging nuclear site
Today Sellafield is the world’s most complex and challenging nuclear site. 1,200 buildings, over 200 of which hold nuclear inventory, are contained on two square kilometres of land, making Sellafield one of the UK’s largest industrial sites. One hundred of these facilities are individually categorised as being at least equivalent (in some cases significantly higher) to a nuclear reactor in terms of potential hazard and security status.
Sellafield is now also one of the UK’s largest construction sites, with multi-billion pound facilities being built to help deliver the clean-up mission. There are more than 450 ongoing engineering and construction projects with 17 valued at over £100m.
The main challenges facing the site today originate from the very early days of the UK’s nuclear weapons programme. Radioactive materials were accumulated throughout the 1940s, 50s and 60s and left in inadequate long term storage conditions in the site’s legacy ponds and silos. Poor historical record-keeping during the early days of weapons production for the Cold War, meant little was known about the nuclear waste housed in some of the original facilities at Sellafield. These historic facilities were not built to meet modern design standards and now stand within a congested footprint of a site that has grown in mission and complexity over the decades, resulting in an interlinked array of old and new processing plants and infrastructure.
Initiatives such as security enhancement and the need to comprehensively address the resilience issues raised by events at Fukushima provided additional challenge to an already intensive programme of change being driven by NMP.
Resources
In accordance with the enormity of the challenge at Sellafield, NMP has been able to provide some of its best people to lead the Sellafield Ltd organisation. This strength of leadership has driven the site to adapt and respond successfully to its new priority of decommissioning.
The value brought by NMP enhancers can be found across the site. Examples include: • technical support to the Waste
Vitrification Plant (where highly active liquor is converted into a solid stable form), which is now achieving world record levels of performance; benchmarking for post operational clean out of radioactive materials at the end of a facility’s operational lifetime;
• improved cost estimating; benchmarking the design of new facilities;
• rolling out a disciplined operations culture across operating plants; • support in the production of the site’s
long term performance plan.
Enhancers have also driven improvements in commercial operations, supply chain management and in contracting strategies
for capital projects. They have delivered coaching activities to support project and engineering managers in robust decision making and leadership skills.
Bringing in global expertise and experience to respond to Sellafield Ltd’s targeted requests for support has inevitably carried a cost. In the early stages of the contract, NMP appointed over 120 enhancers on the site. Today, as efforts have been focused on more specific areas of the site and skill transfer to incumbent staff has been affected, the complement of enhancers has been reduced to less than 30. At the very start of the contract, NMP committed to the development of incumbent Sellafield Ltd staff such that they could replace NMP secondees over a period of time. NMP has delivered on this commitment, with almost half of the senior team now being Sellafield Ltd employees. NMP has also enabled Sellafield staff to attend a number of its parent companies’ corporate training programmes, such as the Leadership Development Programme based in South Carolina and the Major Projects Forum in Denver.
Driving
improvement
and change
Since 2008 NMP has brought in senior leaders and
specialists from its three parent organisations to lead
and support Sellafield Ltd in tackling its multiple
challenges. Through its reach to almost two hundred
thousand people in its combined workforce, NMP has
been able to bring in resources at speed to deal with
immediate issues, while more strategic deployment
of NMP employees (or enhancers) to train and coach
Sellafield incumbent staff has delivered enhanced
capability on the site, resulting in a turnaround in the
site’s performance.
Savannah River URS
NMP – Global Experience and Expertise
La Hague AREVA Birchwood, UK
Sharing Processes and Benchmarking Capability
NMP has introduced global best practice and proven processes to improve
performance and meet safety requirements – the first priority at Sellafield. NMP’s parent companies have introduced processes developed over many years across their world-wide operations to share international best practice.
Safety processes, including MoveSMART and a revitalised employee led Peer to Peer behavioural safety campaign, have helped to deliver improved worker safety to the current record levels.
Safety and operational performance has also benefited from the introduction of NMP processes such as Line of Sight, ACEMAN, Plant Operational Control Centres, Fleet Calls, PAIS and URS’s project management programme, Execution with Certainty. All of these are designed to improve effectiveness, efficiency and safety through a strict code of operational conduct and project management discipline. NMP’s Journey to Excellence programme has provided staff with a clear vision of the future at Sellafield and the steps needed to make this a reality.
Efficiency based programmes have also been introduced by NMP. Roll Back for example, has seen over 930,000 square feet of plant areas removed from radiological access restrictions, allowing more efficient operational conditions for workers. Sellafield staff have been involved in benchmarking exercises with NMP parent companies’ facilities such as the Savannah River and Hanford sites in the US and at La Hague and Marcoule in France. Since NMP took over at Sellafield, the relationship with the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) has flourished, with a demanding programme of
benchmarking and sharing of international best practice that has delivered significant benefits to the site.
Driving improvement and change
continued…
Setting out a vision for the future
Strengthening the Long Term Capability on the Site
Accordingly, NMP implemented a full restructuring of the organisation which focused on providing clear links to the long term mission of the site.
The Sellafield workforce is one of the most competent and well trained in the world. It was clear though, that there was a need to develop the skills and talent to address the new site decommissioning priorities. Since 2008, NMP and the NDA have re-aligned and broadened the focus of Sellafield from a history of prioritisation on commercial operations to the safe clean-up and decommissioning mission on the site. This is reflected in the enhanced role of the Decommissioning Directorate. In specific response to the challenges posed by the site’s legacy ponds and silos, NMP implemented organisational changes to raise the profile and capability of this priority decommissioning area. A Major Projects Group was also established to implement NMP’s commitment to improved project delivery.
As a consequence, Sellafield Ltd is better equipped and structured to respond to the challenges of the decommissioning mission now and in the future.
Resourcing for
the future
During NMP’s tenure as the PBO, record
numbers of apprentices and graduates have
been introduced to the site. Sellafield Ltd
was recognised in the prestigious Top 100
Apprenticeship Employers list by the National
Apprenticeship Service and the Deputy Prime
Minister, Nick Clegg, said; “I would like to
take this chance to congratulate Sellafield
Ltd on your success at this year’s National
Apprenticeship Awards.”
In 2015, Sellafield was named as one of the best graduate employers in the UK. Ranking eighth in the Job Crowd ‘Top 100 Graduate Employers’ list Sellafield Ltd came ahead of many major companies like Jaguar Land Rover, Sky, Virgin Media, Nestlé and Sainsbury’s. The list covers all industries and sectors, with the only qualifying criteria being that a firm must take on more than 30 graduates each year to be eligible for consideration.
The supply chain resource has also been strengthened through the introduction of long term supplier framework contracts which have introduced a broader base of companies to the site, providing the opportunity to build long term capability in the supply chain. Sellafield Ltd has also increased the spend to SMEs to meet and then exceed the NDA estate target of 20 per cent.
Our greatest challenge – Legacy Pond and Silos
The Excellence Plan, which will guide the site over the coming years, beyond NMP’s tenure, has clear prioritisation and a strong focus on measurable business benefits. It is underpinned, sanctioned and assured. The Excellence Plan has been built to deliver what is most needed where it is needed most. It is aligned directly with the priorities and strategies of the delivery divisions, and has provided a proactive framework for embedding improvements and best practices from our parent companies.
In 2009, NMP launched the Integrated Change
Programme to make sure the early changes
being made at Sellafield were being coordinated
in an effective way. In 2014, we launched the
Excellence Plan for the site as a successor to the
ICP. This is the formal programme to achieve the
performance improvements that will enable the
Sellafield Ltd strategy.
Making change the
right way
While the Excellence Plan sets out the things that
we need to improve in order to deliver the Sellafield
Ltd Strategy, it does not set out the full scope of
what we need to deliver at Sellafield and when
we will do it. This is detailed in the separate, but
interdependent Sellafield Plan (commonly known
as the Performance Plan).
Whilst an inherited plan was in place when NMP took ownership of Sellafield Ltd in November 2008, it was collectively agreed that the plan was not realistic and could not be delivered.
In 2011, NMP delivered the site’s first underpinned Performance Plan. It set out how NMP would apply its global experience to improve operations, generate efficiencies and deliver detailed programmes of work. An updated plan for the site was launched in 2014. It incorporates the extensive knowledge that has been acquired on the site over the last six years. This Plan will lead the site into a pivotal phase in its history – full scale high hazard retrieval.
Planning for
success
Sellafield’s new clean-up
mission meant it faced
more extensive and
complex projects than
ever before. NMP set
out to rebuild project
management capability
in the organisation
by putting the right
people in the right roles
and bringing in proven
processes from its three
organisations.
‘Execution with Certainty’ was a proven way of improving the execution of projects on URS’s other sites across the world. It ensured that project safety became the key consideration for projects and introduced streamlined approaches to reduce time, expense and risk and ensure quality performance. It also ensured integrated project phases to eliminate gaps in scope and integrated project teams to eliminate gaps in responsibilities.
NMP also introduced a new gated process, leading to a more independent and structured approach and increased the focus on risk management.
Under NMP’s guidance, Sellafield was the first NDA site to be accredited by the Association of Project Managers for its training programme.
Addressing the
priorities
Legacy Ponds and Silos
NMP and NDA have together brought about a new focus on clean-up of the legacy ponds and silos; the historic facilities that represent some of the highest risks on the site.
NMP created, for the first time, a fully integrated plan for the retrieval and treatment of the waste from these ponds and silos, thus forming the basis of the spending review and better engagement with Government on the priorities for the site.
The building blocks are now in place for legacy ponds and silos and the site is seeing tangible results in removing these key hazards.
Driving Reliable Operations The Operations workstream is a
fundamental one at Sellafield. It is all about operating the plants in a professional, consistent and safe way, whilst ensuring that nuclear safety is the overriding priority. Rebuilding the plan for Sellafield operations enabled a clear link between the NDA strategy and key decisions about the future of the site and its missions.
NMP’s focus on Conduct of Operations and Line of Sight to the overall strategy was embedded throughout Sellafield to improve the reliability and safety of operational plants.
Operations moved from a reactive process to one that looked at delivering consistent and safe operations – getting the right people, resources and instructions in place for each piece of work.
NMP’s Line of Sight initiative demands that the performance of all plants is reviewed on a daily basis, involving the process workers physically doing the work through to Director level. This enables early identification of issues and corrective action, improvements in maintenance and availability of plants and addressing of any
safety issues and human factors affecting performance.
Line of Sight also incorporates preparing for and execution of outage management. It has brought about more reliable operational outcomes, increased availability of plant, reduced contamination incidents, improved nuclear safety and improved maintenance regimes. Root cause analysis of failure modes in production have been utilised to focus the programmes that will lead to a medium to long term improvement in operational performance.
Ultimately, Line of Sight provides confidence in the site’s ability to deliver the NDA targets of finishing reprocessing by 2018 (Thorp) and Magnox (2019), reducing volumes of high level waste and carrying out future retrievals in the high hazard legacy plants.
Ensuring the Full Lifetime of Thorp The Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp), which supports more than 2,000 jobs, is fundamentally dependent on the downstream high level waste evaporators and vitrification plant. When NMP arrived at Sellafield, the Thorp programme was at a high risk of being cut short as a result of uncertainty over residual evaporator lifetimes. This risk not only had commercial implications for Sellafield Ltd, NDA and Government, but also a severe socio-economic impact in West Cumbria. Through the expertise brought by NMP, and in particular parent company Areva, detailed inspections and assessments of the residual evaporator lifetime has resulted in comprehensive safety cases being made to restart, continue and extend operations until such times as the new Evaporator D project comes on line. This has secured the ongoing operation of Thorp with the associated commercial and socio-economic risks now being mitigated. Legacy Ponds and Silos
Early in its tenure, NMP drove an enhanced focus on employee safety and the safe management of nuclear materials. NMP initiated a drill down on safety performance to identify gaps and address shortfalls. A continuous programme of benchmarking and assessment was introduced. NMP enhanced nuclear safety awareness through a nuclear safety training course and the establishment of standard nuclear safety dashboards across the site. Under NMP, Sellafield Ltd increased its assurance inspection team in size and strength and embedded it within each operating unit. To enhance the safety of employees, NMP introduced a number of programmes under an umbrella style of industrial safety including…
ACEMAN
The human performance tool helped teams to identify, recognise and address the barriers they faced in their work.
MoveSMART
The occupational injury prevention programme was introduced to raise safety awareness and ease strain and stresses on the body to help prevent injuries.
Peer to Peer Observations This safety approach, built upon the existing Behavioural Safety programme, focuses on encouraging employees to think about each other’s safety and converse to reinforce safe behaviours or prevent an unsafe act. Charities also benefit from the programme as they receive money for each observation made.
The safety initiatives introduced by NMP at Sellafield are now firmly embedded in the site and executed by the Sellafield Ltd workforce as part of their everyday practices. This step change in safety culture has resulted in Sellafield’s best ever overall safety records in both 2013/14 and 2014/15.
Sellafield is a highly
hazardous nuclear site.
Regardless of the site’s
mission, NMP has put
safety as its highest
priority.
Making safety
the priority
Sellafield Ltd Strategy
Underpinned for the first time by specific strategic objectives, the Strategy set out to ensure: Safe, secure stewardship of the site, making demonstrable progress in the completion of commercial operations and the safe acceleration of risk and hazard reduction and delivering a return on investment.
This strategy successfully drove the creation of the Sellafield Plan and the Excellence Plan – setting the site in the right strategic direction for success.
In 2013 NMP led the creation of the Sellafield Ltd
Strategy, the ‘Key to Britain’s Energy Future’. This
provided a strategic framework for Sellafield, driving
future success.
Sellafield Performance Plan
Performance Plan 2011 provided the site with an underpinned performance plan for the first time. It gave the site a fully integrated lifetime plan that was aligned to Government budget provision for the first time in many years. The 2014 updated version of the Plan incorporated the much greater knowledge of the site and how to clean it up.
Sellafield Excellence Plan
The Excellence Plan 2014/15 builds on the achievements of previous improvement programmes.
The Excellence Plan focuses on safer performance; best value from the supply chain; better financial and schedule performance; fewer unplanned outages and getting the right people with the right skills at the right time. The Plan will drive forward ongoing improvements at the site.
Since 2008, much has been achieved through the
people, resources and processes that NMP has
brought to the site.
NMP has led the site in
changing its focus to
nuclear clean-up and
decommissioning on
behalf of the NDA. Since
2008, some significant
milestones have been
achieved by Sellafield Ltd
under NMP leadership.
Performance
and progress
Decommissioning progress
Pile Fuel Storage Pond (PFSP)
The PFSP, a sub-divided open air storage pond built in the late 1940s, was used to store, cool and prepare fuel from the original Windscale site reactor for reprocessing. It has not received any waste for decades and has, until recent times sat dormant, containing more than 650 tonnes of waste material and fuel, under a care and maintenance regime. This material needs to be removed and immobilised through modern waste treatment processes. This is made extremely difficult through uncertainty over exact inventory, the fact that the pond has remained open to the elements for over 60 years and the radioactive sludges that have built up over the period. Under the leadership of NMP, the first spent fuel to be removed from the pond in over 50 years was retrieved in 2012. Since then, more than a hundred tonnes of material has been removed, the equivalent weight to a blue whale or a Boeing 757 aircraft.
Magnox Swarf Storage Silos (MSSS)
MSSS is a series of wet silos into which fuel cladding from the early Magnox programme was tipped. It represents one of the highest hazards on the site. The objective is to retrieve and package the material into a safe form. Originating from the 1950s, the building was not designed to support retrieval of material which again is uncertain in composition and is in a difficult chemical form.
The structure of the building has been strengthened and active liquor has been removed and safely treated. This represents about three per cent of the overall activity in MSSS, but also equates to a tenth of activity released at Chernobyl. Another major step forward in risk reduction at the facility has been achieved by introducing passive ventilation to all 22 compartments.
Safety and Security
The Site has achieved its best ever overall safety records consecutively in the past two years. The current Lost Time Accident (LTA) rate is now at a record low level. For the first time in the site’s history, there has been a full year without a nuclear reportable event, an environmental reportable event or any internal dose cases.
This has all been achieved despite having to make 30,000 man entries to decontaminate a plant area the size of seven football pitches over an 11 month period. In 2014, Sellafield Ltd broke nuclear records, winning nine ROSPAs (Royal Society for Prevention of Accidents) for safety performance – the best performance by a nuclear operator.
The site has also been able to respond to the demand for enhanced resilience measures following the events of Fukushima and has delivered significant site security improvements through the Security, Emergency Management and Resilience Programme valued at over £1bn.
The safety and security of
Sellafield is the overriding
priority
Windscale Pile Chimney Demolition
The 530 tonne filter gallery that sat on top of the 110 metre high chimney contaminated during the Windscale fire of 1957, has recently been demolished changing the Sellafield skyline forever. The filter gallery was built of concrete, brick and steel and has been removed using conventional equipment in a very unconventional environment.
First Generation Magnox Storage Pond (FGMSP)
Constructed in the 1950s to store, cool and prepare Magnox fuel for reprocessing, FGMSP currently holds legacy skips of used nuclear fuel, which need to be removed and repacked prior to removal. This facility represents a significant challenge due to fuel fragments, debris and a significant build-up of radioactive sludge, resulting from fuel corrosion over the decades. The first progress in decades has been made into retrieving the material from this open air pond. As with the PFSP, the biggest challenge is uncertainty over the historic inventory of FGMSP. To aid characterisation and assessment of the material, Sellafield staff have deployed technology usually used in hazardous deep sea conditions, in the form of remotely operated mini submarines. The machines are mounted with underwater cameras to provide real time images of the pond’s contents and can now be equipped with eductors (vacuum cleaners) and equipment to sling previously unmanageable skips.
Having gained images of the material that has been previously inaccessible for decades, and following completion of the Sludge Packaging Plant in 2014, sludge retrievals will soon commence, representing a major milestone in reducing the radiological hazard at Sellafield’s legacy plants.
Other Decommissioning Achievements under NMP Leadership
The sixth highest hazard on the site has recently been eliminated by completing the repacking of the legacy Plutonium Contaminated Material Filter Stillage, moving them to newer engineered stores, four years ahead of schedule.
Other achievements include the first completion of decommissioning of a power producing nuclear reactor and safe completion of Europe’s largest asbestos removal projects.
Reprocessing Plants
In 2014/15, Sellafield Ltd achieved some of its best plant performances in many years including Thorp, Magnox and Vitrification Plant throughputs.
There has also been the best ever performance of Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor receipts, enabling EDF to improve the resilience of their spent fuel management to keep stations producing electricity for the whole of the UK. A key factor in these operational throughput improvements has been a significantly improved outage management system implemented over the last six years. Reliability and safety of operational plants across Sellafield has also been secured through the introduction of new approaches from NMP’s extensive experience around the world including the commercial nuclear industry and the Department of Energy in the USA. Vitrification Plant and High Level Waste Under NMP and, specifically the expertise provided by Areva through its work at the company’s La Hague facility, the Sellafield Waste Vitrification Plant (WVP) has achieved world record performance.
Early in the contract period, NMP oversaw the first return of High Level Waste to its countries of origin, an achievement that many anti-nuclear commentators and industry experts alike thought would never happen. Today numerous shipments have safely repatriated High Level Waste to its originating nations.
NMP intervention and expertise enabled Evaporator B to be brought back into service and has lengthened the lifetime of Evaporator C. This has ensured the ongoing operation of Thorp and, combined with design modifications to the new fourth Evaporator, has removed the previously planned need for a fifth.
Strengthening the Infrastructure Historically, Sellafield operations have frequently been restricted by the fragility of an ageing utilities.
The site’s electrical distribution system is of the equivalent scale to the 100,000 populated city of Carlisle, and has suffered from a lack of attention over many years. Under NMP, two 40-year-old electrical transformers were replaced ahead of schedule, removing the highest risk to the site’s electrical distribution system. The site has now enjoyed a period of over a year without a power induced operational outage.
Major Projects
Perhaps the most challenging aspect of the site that NMP has faced is the design and construction of major projects associated with the clean-up mission. The inherent uncertainties associated with historic waste inventories and consequential engineering complexities continually serve to frustrate predicted delivery timescales and cost estimates. The nature of the nuclear industry means that worst case scenarios must be fully addressed in the design of a processing facility. Uncertainty over the chemical composition and physical condition of legacy waste streams inevitably lead to increasing costs and timescales as more is learned about the true nature of the challenge.
NMP and Sellafield Ltd have made significant inroads to the understanding of historical waste issues, but as a
consequence, have been obliged to increase cost estimates and projected timescales. While this has attracted public criticism, the work carried out in recent years has been essential to ensure safe delivery of the clean-up mission in future years.
Operations, Major Projects
and life time estimates
Gaining Control Over Major Projects Estimates and Actual Costs
The scale of the challenge in managing the vast array of major construction projects on the site cannot be overstated. Today, we have 89 major projects being delivered on the site, 49 of which have a forecast value of over £20m, 28 over £50m and 19 over £100m.
When NMP took over the management and operation of Sellafield in 2008, it inherited a similar number of major projects, 14 of which were scrutinised throughout the contract by the National Audit Office (NAO) and Public Accounts Committee. Performance in delivery of these projects has been mixed and further improvement is still needed in Sellafield’s capability to accurately estimate project costs and to deliver to time and budget. However, in the latter stages of NMP’s contract at Sellafield, the increase in estimate for projects in the design and planning phase reduced significantly as did, with the notable exception of the Silo Direct Encapsulation Plant (SDP), the forecast outturn costs for the projects in the construction phase.
In its report of March 2015, the NAO noted that for major projects in the design and planning phase, “Estimated lifetime cost of
the SDP doubled in December 2014, while other projects’ estimated costs have not increased significantly [since September 2013]” and “Following earlier increases in the estimated costs for major projects in the construction phase, their costs have now stabilised [since September 2013].” Lifetime Estimates
Earlier in this document, we have explained the process of development of Performance Plan 2011 (PP11) and Performance Plan 2014 (PP14).
In each of these documents lifetime estimates of cost are provided to NDA and Government to ensure that provisions are made to cover the long term liabilities associated with decommissioning at Sellafield. It is of course important to note that the figures are only estimates, based on projections covering more than a hundred years into the future. Consequently, while there is understandable expectation that the short term estimates are reasonably accurate, the uncertainty associated with future work (particularly considering that much of the waste has still to be characterised), means that such a long term plan will undoubtedly change as technology advances into the future.
Comparing PP11 to PP14
The total estimated liability for Sellafield as calculated from PP14 was £88.4bn in 2014 money values. This compares to £70.1bn calculated in PP11 (2011 money values). Adjusting for indexation (£5.9bn) and work carried out between 2011 and 2014 (£4.9bn), the anticipated increase in lifetime estimates is +£17.3bn.
It should be noted however that only 3% of the increase is actual cost related to the period 2011 to 2014 (ie under NMP control/performance). The remaining 97% is based on estimates, not cost, of which 45% of the increase refers to plans for work that will be done beyond 2025. For the period of 2014 to 2025: • 25% is additional mitigating scope
(eg newly identified work to address legacy problems)
• 17% is improved estimating maturity • 10% is new scope (eg post Fukushima
requirements, security enhancements) • 8% is due to improved estimating
maturity Sellafield legacy pond – a clean-up priority
So, while there has been much public commentary associated with the fees paid to NMP over the duration of its contract (£238m from 2008 to 2015, which equates to approximately 2% of turnover), for every pound spent on fee, NMP has returned three pounds in efficiency savings against the original baseline plan.
Additionally, as a result of risk mitigation and removal of previously planned work on the site, resulting from NMP led initiatives, Sellafield Ltd has logged more than £850m in capital savings throughout the contract and in future years, relative to the original plan.
Today, Sellafield is delivering four times more risk reduction per pound spent in infrastructure projects than it was in 2008.
Reducing Our Own Costs to the Taxpayer
Since NMP took responsibility for Sellafield in 2008. In 2014/15, the annual cost of our reachback resources had been cut by more than half while the cost of our nominated staff had been cut by 40% relative to peak annual costs.
Income
Since 2008, under NMP, Sellafield Ltd has delivered more than £550m of income to the NDA with a further £9b of revenue projected over the next 12 years.
NMP has delivered over
£715m of efficiency
savings for the NDA
and the tax payer since
2008. It has enabled
monies that have been
saved through the
Integrated Change Plan
to be redirected to higher
priority programmes
such as Legacy Ponds
and Silos. Cost savings
have also been achieved
through the reduction of
downtime and incident
recovery brought
about by significant
improvements to the
safety and health of
workers.
Achieving savings
of efficiency savings
delivered for the NDA and
the tax payer since 2008
of income to the NDA
of revenue projected over
the next 12 years
The NMP socio-economic
programme has delivered
impact in a challenging
macro-economic
environment. It has
leveraged significant
external funding and
projects that it has
supported are making
a real and visible
difference.
Under the ownership of NMP, the number of apprentices joining Sellafield has more than trebled to 200 this year, reflecting NMP’s commitment to developing West Cumbria’s next generation of nuclear workers. NMP committed early to work with the NDA on the development of the Britain’s Energy Coast (BEC) Master Plan by signing a Partners’ Charter and joining with Sellafield Ltd and the NDA to fund the BEC. NMP has actively participated in the BEC Board and development of the Local Enterprise Partnership.
Since 2008 NMP has invested more than £25m in economic and community programmes, levering over £30m of match funding. That support has funded activity that underpins the potential for West Cumbria to be a Centre of Nuclear Excellence including: Britain’s Energy Coast Construction Skills Centre (£4m); Summergrove accommodation; Albion Square (£5.34m); Pillar House (£2.25m); Port of Workington (£4m) and the funding of a Project Manager for CONE.
As well as supporting major economic and infrastructure projects NMP has also invested in making a difference for people living in West Cumbria. The NMP Community Fund, delivered through the Cumbria Community Foundation, has seen over 55,000 local people benefit directly through community, advice, crisis support, education, sport and culture projects. NMP is also the long term sponsor of the Whitehaven Festivals, bringing around £4m extra into the local economy and attracting over 330,000 visitors.
The impact of NMP’s socio-economic activity has been supplemented by that of the individual parents URS, Amec Foster Wheeler and AREVA. Their commitment to West Cumbria is evident for example through the relocation of NMP and URS to the newly refurbished Old Town Hall. Amec Foster Wheeler’s significant employment of local people and AREVA’s new office in West Lakes Science and Technology Park.
Investing
in the
community
invested in economic and
community programmes
£25m
Supporting Regeneration and Infrastructure
NMP – Investing in West Cumbria since 2008
Supporting Learning and Skills Supporting Communities
Summary of
performance
Provided the NDA and Government with a much
greater understanding of the true extent of the
challenges and risks associated with the site, as
detailed in the Sellafield Plan
Completed the first
returns of High Active
Waste to the countries
of origin
£25m
invested in socio-economic projects and charitable
organisations in West Cumbria
Implemented a passive
safety system in one of
the highest risk legacy
facilities
Completed the first
decommissioning of a
power producing nuclear
reactor
Safely completed
Europe’s largest asbestos
removal project
Achieved the site’s best
ever industrial safety
performance
Made the first retrieval in
50 years
of spent fuel from a legacy storage pond
Generated substantial efficiency savings of over
£715m
Increased annual expenditure in the local supply
chain by approximately 50%
£100m
Below are some of the highlights of performance over the last 18 months.
Safety Performance
• Best overall safety performance on record for two consecutive years. • No internal radiation dose events
recorded to date this year – first time ever in 2014/15.
Legacy Clean-up
• Sludge Retrieval from the First Generation Magnox Storage Pond
Following a successful new construction project to deal with radioactive sludges (one of the main legacy issues on the site), Sellafield Ltd started to retrieve sludge from this legacy facility in early 2015.
• Emptying the Legacy Pile Fuel Storage Pond
Over 100 tonnes of waste material now retrieved from this ageing pond. In total, there are 650 tonnes of metal equipment to be retrieved as part of the decommissioning programme.
• Cleaning Up After the Windscale Fire
The Windscale pile chimneys have been a major part of the Sellafield skyline since the 1940s and the filter gallery at the top of the last remaining chimney has just been removed.
• Safe decommissioning of Calder Hall (world’s first commercial scale Reactor)
10 years without a lost time accident while carrying out work on an ageing facility where there are many heavy tasks, including defuelling of reactors, stripping down steel and removing top ducts with one of the largest cranes in Europe. Technology and Innovation • Introduction of New Technology
A number of innovations have been introduced at Sellafield in recent months: the first nuclear site to use ice-pigging technology to clean and repair pipes quickly and efficiently; and the UK’s first nuclear site to print components via a 3D printer, with some of these now being deployed on plant.
Operations
• Plutonium Contaminated Material Repacking
Successfully repacked the Plutonium Contaminated Material filters four years ahead of schedule with significant cost savings. This removed the site’s sixth highest risk.
• Vitrification Line 3 Back in Operation
Following a ventilation problem in late 2013, Vitrification Line 3 has been successfully decontaminated and is back in operation – a programme of work that took just under 12 months despite presenting the site with many challenges.
• Encapsulated Product Store 3 Handover
Completion of, the latest generation of Intermediate Level Waste stores to be built on the Sellafield site.
• Reprocessing of Overseas Fuel Completed
The THORP facility has now completed reprocessing of the final overseas owned fuel. This completes over two decades of work and is a major milestone for the site and the UK nuclear industry.
“We recognise the achievements of the site in the last six years and
thank NMP for their support in stewarding Sellafield through a crucial
phase of delivery and planning.”
Rt Hon Edward Davey MP
Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change
Acknowledgement of NMP performance from the Secretary of State in his statement of 13 January 2015.
Nuclear Management Partners
T: +44(0)1946 599375
NMP Office, Old Town Hall, Duke Street, Whitehaven, Cumbria CA28 7NU
