AMEC

This article is part of the Nuclear Spin project of Spinwatch.

AMEC is one of Britain's leading engineering project management and consultancy companies, listed on the London Stock Exchange and the FTSE 100. It operates in some 700 locations and 40 countries across the globe.

Background

In 2012 AMEC employed over 27,000 people in over 40 countries. In 2011, 70 per cent of AMEC's turnover was generated outside of the UK. Nuclear work was only eight per cent of its turnover. A similar percentage comes from renewables and bioprocessing, which includes biofuels and biomass.

AMEC has worked in the nuclear sector since the birth of the industry almost 60 years ago and today employs over 3000 specialists in this field. It says it is "the largest UK private sector supplier of programme management and engineering services and programme and asset management to the nuclear industry”.

Clients as of 2012 include Sellafield Limited, OPG, Bruce Power, AWE Aldermaston, Rolls Royce, BAE, and EDF Energy which now incorporates British Energy. Past clients include the British Nuclear Group and UKAEA and a wide range of international nuclear operators'.

In June 2012, AMEC acquired Serco Group plc’s nuclear Technical Services (TS) business for £137 million. TS is based at a number of sites in the UK and has around 600 staff providing consulting and project solutions for customers including the Ministry of Defence, EDF, Magnox and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. Serco notes that Serco itself will continue to serve the defence and science sectors, notably AWE and the National Nuclear and National Physical laboratories.

AMEC's nuclear partnerships

Nuclear Management Partners

Amec is part of Nuclear Management Partners (NMP), a consortium with American company URS, and French company Areva, which runs Sellafield Ltd, managing and operating the Sellafield site in West Cumbria, Capenhurst in Cheshire and the engineering design capability based at Risley in Warrington on behalf of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

The Sellafield nuclear site was previously owned and operated by British Nuclear Fuels Ltd, but all its nuclear sites were transferred to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) in 2005, and BNFL was abolished in 2010. The NDA is a non-departmental public body which does not directly manage the facilities it owns, but contracts out the delivery of management and decommissioning operations to private contractors. In the case of Sellafield the company currently contracted to run reprocessing and nuclear waste management activities is Nuclear Management Partners.

Richard Caborn, a former Labour trade minister was appointed in 2007 as a non-executive director of Nuclear Management Partners until 2009.

Caithness Solutions

Dounreay, in Caithness, the site of the UK’s research into fast breeder reactors, was originally run by the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). In 2005 the NDA took ownership and responsibility for the liabilities at Dounreay. UKAEA became a contractor to the NDA carrying out decommissioning work at Dounreay.

The UKAEA set up the Pentland Alliance with Amec and CH2MHill in 2006, to explore joint opportunities in the nuclear decommissioning market. Babcock International bought UKAEA Ltd. for £38 million in September 2009. Amec then left the group which was re-named Babcock Dounreay Partnership, and URS replaced it.

Amec Nuclear Holdings Ltd and Energy Solutions EU Ltd made up Caithness Solutions which was one of two preferred bidders chosen by the NDA to run Dounreay in 2010. However in April 2012 Babcock Dounreay Partnership, comprising Babcock Nuclear Services Ltd, CH2M Hill International Nuclear Services Ltd, and URS International Holdings (UK) Ltd, were awarded the contract.

New Nuclear

Amec is involved in new nuclear build programmes worldwide providing pre-licensing and architect and owner engineer services ensuring support for project construction management.

During 2011 AMEC continued providing consultancy services to EDF Energy’s nuclear new build projects in the UK. AMEC has worked on the build of every civil nuclear power station dating back to the 1950s in the UK and is are using this experience to assist operators globally in life extension, operational improvement and new reactor build programmes. In Canada, it is a partner in an integrated team undertaking a multi-billion dollar project to restart the Bruce Reactors in Ontario.

Nuclear lobbying

In 2012, political consultancy services were provided to Amec by Tetra Strategy. Staff at Tetra Strategy includes disgraced former Tory MP Julie Kirkbride and former Tory MP Sir Richard Needham. Tetra told PR Week it would "lobby ministers and officials to ensure that AMEC’s name is in the frame when major public infrastructure projects are discussed" and would lobby on nuclear power as AMEC is a major player in the new build of nuclear power stations in the UK. [10]

Tetra Strategy has provided public affairs consultancy services to AMEC since August 2007, when it won the account previously handled by Good Relations. Tetra told PR Week it would "lobby ministers and officials to ensure that AMEC’s name is in the frame when major public infrastructure projects are discussed" and would lobby on nuclear power as AMEC is a major player in the new build of nuclear power stations in the UK.

On 23 March 2005 AMEC had 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".

A Lucrative Nuclear Waste Clean up

A consortium including AMEC, British Nuclear Group Project Services, NIS Ltd, DGP International, and Weir Strachan & Henshaw was 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.

AMEC is also said to have teamed 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, including decommissioning 20 electricity generation, fuel reprocessing and nuclear research sites is said to be valued at £2bn a year.

The AMEC partnership faced fierce competition from British Nuclear Group, which operated 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.

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. Its new president is the former American Department of Energy Assistant Secretary Jessie Roberson.

A conflict of interest on waste and new build?

Also see CoRWM pages on AMEC's role on the supposedly independent committee. AMEC NNC has been acting as CoRWM’s programme manager, as well as managing the discussion at its plenary meetings, organizing its public consultation and procurements procedures as well as its PR company, Luther Pendragon. In fact Luther Pendragon is not contracted to CoRWM at all, but to AMEC NNC.

So here is a nuclear company with a vested interest in new build acting as consultants to the committee that is deciding what to do with nuclear waste, which is one of the last roadblocks in the way of new build. This is admitted by AMEC. In an article entitled “Waste management strategy critical for nuclear new build” Sam Usher from AMEC NNC tells the company’s in house magazine “There is an argument that you shouldn’t build new nuclear power stations if you can’t manage the waste from existing ones”.

AMEC NNC has a vested interest in both decommissioning and nuclear new build, a fact implicitly recognized by AMEC NNC about its CoRWM contract. “This is a high profile contract that puts AMEC at the leading edge of developing nuclear strategy – not only in the waste management industry, but to have an influence on new build”...

At the same time as working for CoRWM, AMEC NNC is promoting is own patented technology for radioactive waste. “One technology that might help with the problem of radioactive waste is GeoMelt®, a propriety AMEC technology”. A paper discussing the GeoMelt technology has even been discussed at CoRWM meetings.

AMEC NNC has a dedicated section on its website talking about “the benefits our history brings to Nuclear New Build” where the company states it “has a skilled, competent and well-balanced workforce committed to supporting the UK Nuclear Industry and we are eagerly looking forward to the opportunity to use our abilities in support of new nuclear plants”.

Dams and pipelines

In 2003, when AMEC announced that it had 99.96% approval for the takeover of the French firm SPIE Batignolles, eyebrows were raised. At the time, SPIE was in the middle of a court case involving bribery allegations in the construction of a controversial dam as part of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project. High ranking officials at the project were imprisoned for taking bribes from multinationals including SPIE and Canada's Acres International.

The dam scheme in southern Africa attracted the attention of environmentalists who claimed that 27,000 people and hundreds of subsistence farming households were affected but had not been properly compensated. The project, which was intended to divert water from Lesotho to South Africa, was first conceived during the Apartheid era when South Africa was subject to international sanctions. To avoid the difficulties of international financiers openly aiding the then-apartheid regime, the project's financial advisers – Chartered WestLB – set up a London-based trust fund through which payments could be laundered.

AMEC was also involved in the construction of the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline. Its responsibility in the project was to build a section through a Georgian national park, which produces Borjomi Mineral Water, Georgia's largest export.

It was also part of the consortium that built Britain's first toll motorway – the Birmingham Northern Relief Road. The consortium expects to receive more than £2bn from people using it. The road will destroyed 27 miles of the West Midlands green belt and damaged two SSSIs. AMEC also has an 11 per cent interest in the Cross Israel Highway Concession.

Iraq contracts

In 2002, 60 per cent of AMEC's turnover was generated outside of the UK. AMEC's chief executive at the time, Sir Peter Mason, said prior to the war on Iraq: "If there is a war, we might see more work afterwards. We were involved in Kuwait the last time." In 2004 it was awarded major reconstruction contracts in Iraq.

Resources

• See also the Powerbase profile AMEC: Use of Lobby Groups
• Friends of the Earth UK has published many articles and a briefing on AMEC. See: http://www.foe.org.uk/ Do a search on AMEC on the FoE website.
• A resource on corporations and dambuilding: 'Dams Incorporated, The Record of Twelve European Dam Building Companies', February 2000, A Report by The CornerHouse, Chris Lang, Nick Hildyard, Kate Geary, Matthew Grainger, Published by The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation.

Website

www.amec.com