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New international partnership tailor-made for UK nuclear industry - 18 September 2012

AREVA, a global leader in nuclear energy and Atkins, one of the world’s leading engineering and design consultancies, have formed a joint venture to compete for projects in the UK nuclear fuel management and decommissioning sector.

The AREVA-ATKINS Partnership UK is expected to bid for significant contracts at Tier 2 level* in the UK nuclear engineering sector.

The partnership will draw on the expertise of both companies. It offers a unique combination of international technology along with unbeatable design and engineering consultancy and deep understanding of the UK market and regulations.

Dominique Mockly, AREVA Senior Executive Vice President, Back End Business Group said: “We are delighted to link with a company with such a strong reputation as Atkins. This will enable us to put our proven technology to use in meeting the challenges of UK decommissioning and strengthen AREVA’s footprint in the country.”

Martin Grant, CEO of Atkins (Energy), said: “We have been involved in the UK nuclear clean-up programme since the late 1980s and bring a wealth of experience in the UK nuclear sector. The partnership we have created today will allow us to further develop skills and capabilities to support a long term, sustainable UK nuclear industry.”

AREVA is the world leader in the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle with expertise in all back-end operations. Back-end activities include used-fuel recycling, decommissioning, waste management and transport solutions for each stage of the cycle. AREVA is part of Nuclear Management Partners in the United Kingdom which manages Sellafield.

Atkins is one of the world’s leading engineering and design consultancies with around 9,000 of its 17,500 people based in the UK.  Its international nuclear consultancy has been working at Sellafield, Magnox and former UKAEA sites for around 25 years.

The AREVA-ATKINS Partnership UK will have its headquarters in Warrington.

*Tier 1 contracts are the contracts with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) to manage and operate the various sites in NDA estate. Tier 2 contracts mean the subcontracts the site operators place to deliver their objectives.

Ends

For more information:

Martin Adeney, AREVA UK
martin.adeney@virgin.net

Imogen Parker, Atkins
imogen.parker@atkinsglobal.com

 

Notes to editors:

About Atkins
Atkins (www.atkinsglobal.com) is one of the world's leading engineering and design consultancies*, employing some 17,420 people across the UK, North America, Middle East, Asia Pacific and Europe. It has the breadth and depth of expertise to plan, design and enable some of the world's most technically challenging and time critical infrastructure projects.

*It is the largest engineering consultancy in the UK (New Civil Engineer Consultants File 2012) and the 13th largest global design firm (Engineering News-Record 2011).

Recent nuclear projects include:

  • Provision of full multidisciplinary design services as architect engineer for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project in France;
  • Delivery of engineering services across the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) estate including the decommissioning of the first generation Magnox storage pond at Sellafield, one of the highest hazard facilities in the NDA estate;
  • Atkins has played a key role for EDF Energy in providing the solution to returning the Heysham A and Hartlepool nuclear power stations back to power following problems with the boiler closure units on those stations;
  • Atkins has trained more than 550 engineers over the past two years in its Nuclear Training Academy and is currently supporting the new Nuclear Energy course at the University of Cambridge to educate the nuclear industry leaders of the future.

Other recent projects include:

  • Major infrastructure works, such as the design and programme management of the civil works for the Dubai Metro red and green lines in the UAE;
  • Key rail projects – providing architectural and engineering design services on Crossrail, Europe’s biggest civil engineering project in London, UK, and designing stations, tunnelling and track systems for Gautrain, South Africa’s first high speed line;
  • Renewable energy schemes – transformer platform design for the Thanet offshore wind park in the North Sea;
  • Multi-year architecture-engineering construction management services for the US National Park Service, including projects such as rehabilitation of the Furnace Creek Visitor Center and Administrative Complex at California’s Death Valley to meet the US Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Gold certification standards;
  • High profile transport planning and urban design – our innovative scheme to deliver a diagonal crossing at Oxford Circus in London, UK, has helped tackle the problem of pedestrian crowding;
  • Water and environmental projects – critical programme management of storm protection works in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and Southern Louisiana in North America, providing expertise in coastal restoration, engineering, environmental and GIS support to rebuild defenses and protect habitats;
  • Multidisciplinary building design – Northwood Primary School in Darlington, UK, is an exemplar project which raises standards for environmental design and community engagement.

Atkins was named among The Sunday Times 25 Best Big Companies to Work For 2011, won Consultancy of the Year in the CIBSE Low Carbon Performance Awards 2010, received the first ever certification of the Carbon Trust Standard awarded to an engineering consultancy in the construction sector, and was included in The Times Top 50 Employers for Women 2011 and The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers 2010. Atkins was also construction and civil engineering sector winner for the fifth consecutive year in the Target National Graduate Recruitment Awards 2010 and was awarded a RoSPA Gold Award 2011 for excellence in control of health and safety in the workplace.

Atkins was the official engineering design services provider for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

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About AREVA
AREVA supplies solutions for power generation with less carbon. Its expertise and unwavering insistence on safety, security, transparency and ethics are setting the standard, and its responsible development is anchored in a process of continuous improvement.

Ranked first in the global nuclear power industry, AREVA’s unique integrated offering to utilities covers every stage of the fuel cycle, nuclear reactor design and construction, and related services. The group is also expanding its operations to renewable energies – wind, solar, bioenergies, hydrogen and storage – to be one of the leaders in this sector worldwide.

With these two major offers, AREVA’s 48,000 employees are helping to supply ever safer, cleaner and more economical energy to the greatest number of people.

AREVA’s EPR reactor has been selected by EDF, the world’s largest nuclear electric utility, for construction at the Hinkley point site. In addition, along with Chinese group CGNPC, AREVA has announced its intention to bid for Horizon Nuclear Power.