AMEC
Background
Amec is one of Britain's leading engineering companies. It operates in some 700 locations across the globe.[1] In 2004, it was awarded major reconstruction contracts in Iraq. [2]
AMEC says it is "the largest UK private sector supplier of programme management and engineering services to the nuclear industry. With 50 years’ experience in the nuclear market, we ensure the safe and efficient operation of nuclear plants, from concept through to decommissioning. Clients include British Nuclear Group, British Energy, UKAEA, AWE Aldermaston and a wide range of international nuclear operators'. [3]
One of its main subsidiary companies is AMEC NNC "an international nuclear engineering services company." [4]
Nuclear Lobbying
On March 23, 2005 it invited some of Britain's most senior business journalists for breakfast at the St Stephen's Club in Westminster. Speakers at the event included David King, the government chief scientist, Brian Wilson, the former energy minister, and Dipesh Shah, chief executive of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, who made a pitch for nuclear energy in order "to stop the lights going out". [5]
A Lucrative Clean up
A consortium including AMEC, British Nuclear Group Project Services, NIS Ltd, DGP International, and Weir Strachan & Henshaw has been chosen to build a £100 million pound facility at the nuclear plant at Dounreay to treat fast reactor fuel reprocessing wastes. The project is the largest project yet to be undertaken by the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency. [6]
Amec is also said to be teaming up with the UKAEA and the American company CH2M in order to bid for £56bn worth of clean-up work at Britain's civil nuclear sites. The work, incoluding decommissioning 20 electricity generation, fuel reprocessing and nuclear research sites is said to be valued at £2bn a year.
The Amec partnership will face fierce competition from British Nuclear Group, that operates BNFL's four sites including Sellafield, as well as a host of foreign companies such as the controversial American company Bechtel, Fluor, and the French firm Cogema. [7]
CH2M Hill is a leading engineering company that has been cited by American Democrats as having a "conflict of interest" in its work in Iraq [8]. Its new president is the former American Department of Energy Assistant Secretary Jessie Roberson. [9]
Related Articles
- ^ AMEC, Shaping the Future
- ^ AMEC, AMEC Wins Major Contracts to Restore Public Works and Water Infrastructure in Iraq, Press Release, March 24, 2004.
- ^ Jonathan Leake and Dan Box, "When PR goes nuclear", New Statesman, May 27, 2005
- ^ Nuclear News Flashes, January 6, 2006. not online
- ^ Michael Harrison, "Amec Alliance Eyes up £56bn Nuclear Clean-up Contracts", The Independent, January 17, 2006
- ^ Larry Margasak, Lawmakers Cite CH2M Hill Conflict of Interest in Iraq Contract, Denver Post, May 18, 2004.
- ^ Nuclear News Flashes, January 20, 2006. Not online
