Up to 500 jobs at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing installation in Cumbria could be lost and a mixed oxide fuel (Mox) producing plant abandoned if British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) does not secure vital Japanese contracts, the company has said.
BNFL recently reported losses for 1999/2000 had reached £337 million sterling following the controversy about the falsification of quality control data at its Mox Demonstration Facility last year. Further problems could be in store for the company because without the Japanese orders, jeopardised because of the falsification scandal, BNFL says the Mox plant cannot operate.
The chief executive of BNFL, Mr Norman Askew, warned yesterday that unless the Japanese orders were secured by January or February next year it could not justify opening the Mox plant, which reprocesses fuel into Mox fuel that can then be converted into electricity. "If the plant does not secure new orders, then it will not be economically viable to run and it will not open," Mr Askew said. "Sellafield Mox plant has already been more than three years in gaining regulatory approval to operate. Clearly we need to get the plant operating commercially in the future."
If the Mox plant begins work, Sellafield has said up to 500 people would be employed.
A BNFL delegation will travel to Japan at the end of this week to continue the process of rebuilding the company's profile with its customers.
The company's reputation was badly damaged by the data falsification incident involving paperwork accompanying a Mox fuel consignment sent to the Kansai Electric Power Company in Japan, and BNFL has now agreed to bear the cost of bringing eight fuel consignments back to Britain. It has also agreed to pay £40 million compensation to Kansai, which has lifted its suspension on new Mox reprocessing business.
At least six Japanese utilities have entered into "variable commitments" with BNFL to receive mixed oxide fuel, but a BNFL spokeswoman said these letters of intent needed to be turned into firm orders.
But Mr Mark Johnston, of Friends of the Earth, said BNFL's warning about the Mox plant was its way of "preparing the ground" for the British government to refuse authorisation for its operation: "The company has never been able to show convincingly that it had the clients to justify the plant.
"The Environment Department will want the issue cleared from its desks before the general election," Mr Johnston said.
"The reason for this is not the collapse in confidence in BNFL but the collapse in confidence in plutonium. The plutonium Mox fuel option is more dangerous and more expensive compared to conventional nuclear fuels.
"Using it makes no commercial sense. The fact that BNFL, a publicly owned company, has already sunk £450 million into building such a white elephant is a national scandal."