Amec wins slice of deal to clean up Sellafield
Amec has won a share of a £6.5 billion Sellafield clean-up contract, the biggest job in the UK's planned £73 billion nuclear decommissioning initiative over the coming decades.
In a shock decision, Amec consortium Nuclear Management Partners, which includes French and American industry specialists Areva and URS Washington, was today named as the preferred bidder for the contract. Amec shares surged 171/2p to 8781/2p on the news.
Shares in rival bidder Serco crashed to an 18-month low of 384p, off 30p. Serco was the only other British company in the running for Sellafield, working in a consortium with US engineering giant Bechtel. Many had predicted the team would land the spoils because of both companies' strong track records in landing work under New Labour.
The Sellafield contract is valued at £1.3 billion a year, and Amec is set to bag its share of the £50 million-a-year profits the consortium will earn. The Amec consortium has the contract for five years but there is an extension of up to 12 years, which will be looked at in 2012.
"This will be a complex and demanding programme," said Amec's nuclear chief Didier Pfleger.
The other losing bidders are US nuclear specialist CH2M Hill and a consortium of Toshiba of Japan and Fluor of the US.
