Civil engineering firm Graham Engineering has picked up a £22 million contract to build a nuclear waste storage facility at the legacy Dounreay nuclear power site at Caithness in northeast Scotland.
Announced in early October, the contract was awarded by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and will cover an extension to an existing above-ground facility for the storage of intermediate-level nuclear waste, in addition to processing and packaging of this waste.
Dounreay construction director David Hubbard said the contract was “an important step” in efforts to manage the site’s waste. He added that the coming years would see several new facilities constructed to support the management of this legacy waste, in addition to the demolition of a number of redundant structures.
The waste will be housed within passively safe containers, for long-term storage within the facility.
Graham Engineering managing director Leo Martin said: “We have already established a strong partnership with Dounreay Site Restoration Limited, stretching back to early 2011, and will once again apply our collaborative approach and technical expertise to maximise the success of this project.
The project is expected to start during October, with a pre-construction phase lasting six months and a construction phase scheduled to last two and a half years. Around 100 people will be employed to complete the work.
The Dounreay nuclear power site has been closed since 1994. It presents the largest nuclear decommissioning project in Scotland and, according to Dounreay, one of Europe’s most complex nuclear closure programmes.
