BNFL has announced the setting up of a stand-alone clean-up business under the name British Nuclear Group (BNG).
The move is in response to the setting up of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), which is due to be established on 1 April 2005. NDA will assume ownership of all UK nuclear sites and associated liabilities, but will not carry out clean-up work itself.
Until the date when the NDA comes into being, BNG will operate as a business unit of BNFL. Thereafter it would have separate legal status, but remain wholly-owned by BNFL (similar to the status of BNFL subsidiary Westinghouse). The group will have an initial turnover of almost £2 billion, and employs around 15,000 people.
BNG is headed by Lawrie Haynes, who joined BNFL at the beginning of 2003 as CEO of the government services business division. BNG is organised into three business areas: Management Services, Project Services, and the US operation BNFL Inc. The Project Services business, headed by George Beveridge, will operate as a subcontractor to the site licence companies in the UK and other European countries. Management Services is directly controlled by Lawrie Haynes and organised into two business units: Sellafield and an integrated reactor sites business.
