US Kurion has acquired the UK robotics and remote systems firm Oxford Technologies.
Kurion said the transaction expands its existing Robotic Systems & Services team, which has delivered and designed over 180 systems for projects around the world, including the technology used to investigate a damaged reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan. Kurion also designed systems to deliver safe access to hazardous material and environments at various sites worldwide, including Hanford in the USA and Sellafield in the UK.
"Oxford Technologies is the perfect complement to Kurion's robotics team," said Kurion CEO William Gallo. "Oxford Technologies' suite of technologies, client base and team of more than 60 highly skilled engineers and project managers will augment the Kurion team and provide an established base of operations for our continued expansion in Europe. The synergy of the two companies will accelerate Kurion's growth."
Oxford Technologies specializes in full life-cycle remote handling systems, complex plant assembly, and radiation-hardened systems. It has provided its systems to challenging decommissioning sites worldwide, including Sellafield and Dounreay in the UK.
“Kurion shares Oxford Technologies' mission to take on the toughest remote handling problems and develop technical solutions to support safe decommissioning and energy innovation," said Dr Alan Rolfe, co-founder and managing director of Oxford Technologies.
Dr Rolfe will retire following the acquisition but will remain available as a consultant to the company. Before founding Oxford Technologies in 2000, he managed the remote handling team at the JET fusion project for more than 20 years.
Matthew Cole, director of Kurion's Robotic Systems & Services business unit, will move to the UK to oversee the company's global remote systems operations. This acquisition follows the recent announcement from Kurion and the UK National Nuclear Laboratory that they had completed cold commissioning of the GeoMelt In-Container Vitrification system that is headed for the Sellafield Central Laboratory.
