An agreement signed at the beginning of July between Japanese utilities and Cogema, under which Cogema was to provide training for staff to operate the Rokkashomura reprocessing plant (see NEI August 2001, p13), has stumbled at the first hurdle. Japanese Nuclear Fuel (JNFL) rejected the deal when Cogema attempted to secure extra reprocessing for its La Hague plant in exchange for the training. The Japanese government said that this would question the credibility of plans for the Rokkashomura facility to go into operation in 2005 as scheduled.
