Scottish nuclear plant contracts provide boost for US engineering giant

ENGINEERING giant Jacobs, which employs more than 1,000 people in Scotland, has won contracts worth around $16 million (£11.5m) in total to support decommissioning work at the Dounreay nuclear plant in Caithness.

Jacobs has been engaged to upgrade the ventilation systems for the prototype fast reactor (PFR) at Dounreay. It will also develop the decommissioning strategy for a plant in which spent fuel from experimental UK reactors was reprocessed.

The contracts were awarded to Jacobs by Dounreay Site Restoration Limited, which is responsible for cleaning up the site on behalf of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

DSRL head of reactors Phil Cartwright said work on the prototype fast reactor involves “unique” decommissioning challenges. He noted: “Replacement of the ventilation system will enable us to safely complete the decommissioning work, while ensuring the required environmental controls are in place, over the next 10-15 years.”

Jacobs said the projects involve some of the most challenging buildings at Dounreay. The company will deploy the full range of its project management, technical and delivery capabilities on them.

Jacobs won the contracts months after clinching a deal worth around $10m to provide design services in connection with a project to repackage nuclear waste held underground at Dounreay for longterm storage in a modern facility.

The contracts will help the American group generate a return on the investment it made in the nuclear engineering business acquired from Aberdeen-based Wood for £250 million in August 2019.

In 2004, Jacobs bought the Glasgow-based Babtie consultancy, in a deal it was thought valued the firm at around £90m.

Power generation stopped at Dounreay in 1994. The Hunterston nuclear power plant in Ayrshire is due to enter the defuelling process later this year while the Torness plant in East Lothian is expected to continue operating until 2030.

The Chapelcross plant in Dumfriesshire was the first nuclear power station built in Scotland. It was operational from 1959 to 2004.

In accounts for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority published last month, it said: “Current plans indicate it will take more than 100 years to complete our core mission of nuclear clean-up and waste management.”