French industrial engineering contractor and equipment manufacturer CNIM, has won a contracts to supply nuclear handling systems for facilities in the UK, Finland and Ukraine.
EDF Energy selected CNIM as its preferred bidder for the design, manufacture and installation of a used fuel loading system for the two EPR units planned for the Hinkley Point C NPP under construction in the UK.
In Finland, under a contract with Posiva Oy, a joint venture between TVO and Fortum, CNIM is to engineer three fuel handling and transfer machines for the encapsulation facility under construction at the Onkalo deep-geological used nuclear fuel repository site. CNIM will provide a cask transfer trolley, a fuel handling machine and a canister trolley.
In Ukraine, Novarka has awarded CNIM a further contract with engineering consortium Novarka related to construction of the New Safe Confinement structure over the damaged unit 4 of the Chernobyl NPP. This will include construction of a maintenance trolley for the main crane system, which will be used in dismantling the reactor damaged after the 1986 accident as well as its containment structure, and will feature a lead-lined cabin positioned on a telescopic rail to avoid radiation exposure.
According to director of nuclear activities Ludovic Vandendriesche, CNIM must complete the design, sourcing, manufacturing and in-house testing work for Novarka by November, when the construction work is due to be finished.
The handling systems will be manufactured at CNIM’s facilities in France.
