Balfour and Costain win contract at Magnox nuclear plant

FTSE 250 infrastructure group Balfour Beatty and AIM-listed Costain have been selected for a contract to work on the decommissioning of the Magnox nuclear power plant by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).

The £288m framework contract, for the delivery of construction, infrastructure and maintenance projects across all 10 sites operated by Magnox, is worth around £30m per annum to each group for up to 10 years (initially for give years with options to extend up to a further five).

The NDA is responsible for the decommissioning and cleaning up of civil nuclear facilities, and to safely bring to an end 50 years of Magnox electricity generation in the UK.

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Wylfa, Magnox's last remaining nuclear generation site, has been generating low carbon electricity since 1971 and supplies 11m kilowatt hours of electricity on a typical day, enough to meet the needs of a city the size of Liverpool or Manchester, according to Magnox Ltd.

Costain already provides its services at Magnox, having announced last year a framework contract to retrieve and process both wet and solid intermediate level radioactive waste across all the Magnox sites in the UK.

The group's Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Andrew Wyllie, said: "Construction, infrastructure and maintenance will form a major part of the work to deliver Magnox sites into a state of care and maintenance. Inclusion on this framework is testament to our growing reputation for providing specialised engineering solutions to customers and industry sectors which have highly complex requirements."

As for Balfour, the firm said that selection for the contract complements its drive to increase its involvement in the power-related markets.

CEO Ian Tyler said: "We are delighted to have been selected by Magnox as part of this important framework. Our role in the framework highlights Balfour Beatty's strengths in the design, delivery and maintenance of infrastructure assets in the power sector. We look forward to working with Magnox."