Wier buys SEBIM
Wier Group Holdings, a Wier Group subsidiary, has acquired a 90.44% stake in SEBIM Holding, a family owned French valve and actuator manufacturer. Wier Group Holdings will acquire the remaining 9.56% shortly. The cost of the purchase is FF80 million (about $13 million). SEBIM employs 230 people at three manufacturing sites in Marseilles, Lille and Veirzon and produces safety release valves for nuclear and process industries.
Wier pumps for both Chinas
Taiwan Power’s Longmen nuclear plant, being built by GE Nuclear, has awarded contracts worth $20 million to Wier Pumps’ subsidiaries Hopkinsons and Atwood & Morrill. The two companies will provide pumps with a mixture of ASME III class II and III designs to perform safety and other related duties within the nuclear island.
Wier Pumps are also to supply four concrete volute type pumps, each capable of providing a flow of 88 000 m3/hr of cooling water for the Qinshan plant sear Shanghai in China. The contract is from the US based Bechtel Corporation.
Silvertown wins Heysham contract
GEC Alsthom has chosen Andre expansion joints manufactured by Silvertown UK for its refurbishment project of the Heysham 1 AGR. The joints are hand-fabricated bellows in which layers of fabric-reinforced rubber form a convolute bellows design. They will be installed into the cooling water system .
Thompson Valves to Qinshan
UK based Thompson Valves, has won an order worth £2 million to supply the CANDU reactor being built at Qinshan, China. The company will supply bellows-sealed valves, pressure regulators and specialised actuated valves.
NAC to supply Duke Energy
Duke Energy is to purchase up to 60 Universal Multi-Purpose Canister Systems (UMS) from NAC International. The systems are for spent fuel management at the McGuire plants at Huntersville, North Carolina in the US. UMS is a canister based transportable dry spent fuel storage system.
Cogema to reduce submarine wastes
Lockheed Martin Advanced Environmental Systems, under contract from the US Defence Special Weapons Agency, has awarded a subcontract worth $23.9 million to Cogema Technologies. The contract involves work to stabilise and reduce the volume of liquid and solid LLW currently stored at two nuclear submarine maintenance bases at Zvezdochka and Zvezda in Russia.
Cogema Technologies will design, develop, fabricate, test and deploy this system on a turnkey basis. The work is part of a Co-operative Threat Reduction project assisting the Russian Federation in dealing with wastes produced as a result of dismantling submarines under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties.
Chernobyl safety consortium hired
Energoatom, the Ukrainian national nuclear utility, has awarded a multi-million ECU project to improve safety measures inside the shelter over the damaged reactor, to a consortium headed by French company SGN, and including UK-based AEA Technology and JGC of Japan. The contract is funded by the Chernobyl Shelter Fund which is administered by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Develop-ment. The consortium will work on developing solutions to risks involving contaminated dust and water within the shelter, preventing criticality events and also establish an emergency plan should an accident occur.
Slingsby snake completed
Cobham subsidiary Slingsby Engineering, which specialises in robotic manipulators, is completing work on its latest machine, the Hydrus. Greek for water snake, the Hydrus is a six degrees of freedom master slave system for underwater applications. The slave arm is made from a high strength aluminium alloy and is capable of lifting 114 kg.
BNFL to outsource IT
BNFL is outsourcing the management of almost all its information technology requirement to its subsidiary IT Services. The company expects to make savings in the region of 25% on its IT costs as a result of the rationalisation. The IT Effectiveness Review, which led to this decision, is part of the company’s ‘Beyond 2000’ programme. BNFL will retain ownership and mangement of all process plant and control systems, as well as a small number of specialist applications including CAD systems, either because of security reasons or because the review considered them to be core to the business.
Poland study completed
BNFL Engineering, in partnership with Framatome and the Institute of Atomic Energy, has completed a six month study for a spent fuel management programme at Swierk, near Warsaw in Poland. Swierk has two research reactors. The 10 MW EVA research reactor is in the process of being decommissioned. The study reviewed the original concept of retaining the fuel elements in wet storage, assessed the site’s requirements and provided a recommendation for a method of storage over a 50 year plus timeframe.
AEA Technology wins UKAEA contract
AEA Technology has won a £5.5 million contract to continue to supply health physics advice and dosimetry services to the UK Atomic Energy Authority. AEA Technology was separated from UKAEA when it was privatised in 1996.
Consortium formed to tackle Pu question
Duke Engineering, Cogema and Stone & Webster are leading a consortium of companies set up to tackle the problem of dealing with 50 t of weapons grade Pu now surplus to requirements. The Duke, Cogema, Stone & Webster team will supply a full scope of services to the US DOE.
The proposed method of disposal is burning the plutonium as mixed oxide fuel in civil reactors. The consortium will provide the services necessary to design, construct and licence a MOX fuel fabrication facility, fabricate the fuel and burn it in commercial reactors.
Duke joins INPO Supplier Programme
Duke Engineering and Services, based in Atlanta, Georgia, has joined the membership of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operators supply programme. Established in 1984, the INPO Supplier Programme advances the safe operation of nuclear power plants. Duke joins 12 other supplier organisations as members of the programme.
