AMEC

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

Background

Amec is one of Britain's leading engineering companies. It operates in some 700 locations across the globe. In 2004, it was awarded major reconstruction contracts in Iraq.

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'.

One of its main subsidiary companies is AMEC NNC "an international nuclear engineering services company."

The Company

In 2002, AMEC employed 22,964 people and had 1,976 new contracts worldwide. It was ranked 19th in the top global construction firms. It reported a decline in results during the same year, with turnover of £4.33bn and operating profit of £100.2m. The rail arm is one of the fastest growing aspects of the business.

In 2002, 60% of AMEC's turnover was generated outside of the UK. This looks set to rise. As AMEC chief executive, 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.'

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 is currently involved in the construction of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline along with BP. Its responsibility in the project is to build a section through a Georgian national park. The national park produces Borjomi Mineral Water which is Georgia's largest export.

It is also part of the consortium working on 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 destroy 27 miles of the West Midlands green belt and damage two SSSIs. AMEC also has an 11% interest in the Cross Israel Highway Concession.

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".

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.

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.

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?

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”.

Resources

• Products and Projects
• Who, Where, How Much?
• Influence / Lobbying
• AMEC: Use of Lobby Groups
• Corporate Crimes
• Friends of the Earth UK has done 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