NDA Sellafield Programme Director

Report to WCSSG

Tuesday November 4, 2014

Cleator Moor Civic and Masonic Centre

Industrial safety

Following a strong year in industrial safety last year, the first few months of 2014/15 saw an increased number of incidents resulting in lost time accidents (LTAs).

This is disappointing and underlines the need for a strong safety culture on site where everyone takes responsibility for their own safety and that of others.

More recently performance has improved and, despite this dip in performance relative to last year, the LTA rate is currently below last year’s and the trend improving.

No events or accidents occurred at all in the latest monthly reporting period. This is the first time for 15 years that a period has passed without an event.

The NDA will continue to ensure that Sellafield Ltd (SL) retains its focus on safety in the second half of the year and that this improving trend is sustained.

Operational plants

Sellafield’s ageing operational plants continue to experience disruptions which impact upon production. However, SL is now responding more quickly and smartly to these setbacks and improved manufacturing approaches in the plants are beginning to deliver positive results.

Magnox Reprocessing

Magnox Reprocessing has performed well during the period, recovering in full losses caused by a halt in production following a blockage in one of the plant’s chemical feeds towards the end of the last financial year.

The plant reprocessed 196te in the first six months of the year (against a target of 203te) which represents a commendable performance in the circumstances.

However, the facility has been in outage since September 22 after a decision was taken to shut down while a review of the safety case for the Magnox Plutonium Purification cycle is carried out.

The plant’s year-end target of 520te remains challenging but achievable and forecast throughput is within the performance range required to complete the Magnox Operating Programme.

Thorp

Thorp suffered two unplanned shutdowns early in the year as a result of issues in the plant. The loss of production during these outages has resulted in the plant falling behind schedule, resulting in its year-end target for shearing being revised from 439te to 400te.

Vitrification

A good start to the year in vitrification has seen throughput of 510te - exceeding schedule for the first six months of the year by 70te.

This strong performance is due in part to improvements made to lines 1 and 2 as part of the NDA-sponsored Vitrification Throughput Improvement Plan.

This was implemented during planned outages earlier in the year and has resulted in the ability for increased throughput of High Active Liquor (HAL).

SL has continued with commendable work to return Line 3 to service following a long outage caused by a contamination event last November.

Legacy Ponds and Silos

Pile Fuel Storage Pond

A pleasing momentum is building in the programme with progress being maintained on a number of fronts in the first six months of the year.

The team has successfully applied the ‘decommissioning mindset’, using a pragmatic approach that relies on off-the-shelf solutions, problem-solving at the workface and driving forward on multiple fronts.

Retrievals of metal waste from the pond are continuing and the transfer of canned fuel to the Active Handling Facility restarted in June.

The team remains on track to have the pond emptied and ready for dewatering by the end of the current decade.

First Generation Magnox Storage Pond

The ‘decommissioning mindset’ is also in evidence in the FGMSP programme with excellent progress across a number of fronts so far this year.

Sludge retrievals from the pond are scheduled to begin before the end of the year, with material being pumped via a pipe bridge to the newly commissioned Sludge Packaging Plant 1, marking a major step forward in the programme.

Other highlights in the period have included the clearance of the burst slug bay wall and the development of a new technique to clear previously unrecoverable skips using slings attached to the Skip Handler Machine using remotely operated vehicles.

The team’s innovative approach has been coupled with a strong safety culture resulting in the facility approaching three million man hours without an LTA – a superb achievement in a very challenging environment.

Magnox Swarf Storage Silo (MSSS)

The MSSS programme is perhaps the most challenging in the NDA portfolio, combining an aging building, a varied inventory, a technically challenging retrieval plan and a reliance on several new downstream plants which will ultimately sort, treat and package its waste.

Work is currently focused on two main areas – the construction of three machines to empty the silos, known as Silo Emptying Plant (SEP) machines, which will be placed on top of the main structure, and the strengthening of the building itself in order to support these 400 tonne machines.

During the first half of 2014/15, SEP 2 works testing and commissioning has continued. Following completion, the machine will dismantled before being shipped to Sellafield ready for installation on plant.

Works testing and commissioning of SEP 1 is ready to commence once work on SEP2 has been completed. SEP 3 is still at the design phase.

Improvements to the seismic withstand of the MSSS facility continue and work on the second extension is scheduled to be completed during the second half of this year.

Important milestones in the delivery of the downstream plants required to decommission MSSS were achieved during the period.

The Box Encapsulation Plant (BEP) project - a key enabler to first waste retrievals from MSSS - was initiated with early work focused on running a competition to secure a contractor to construct the plant.

The preferred bidder to deliver the Sellafield Direct Encapsulation Plant (SDP) - a critical plant to complete bulk waste retrievals - was also announced. The NDA is now developing the business case to support the contract award decision.

Pile Fuel Cladding Silo (PFCS)

A strong safety culture at PFCS has resulted in the facility recording three years without an LTA – an excellent achievement which the NDA will be challenging the team to sustain.

The programme’s focus is currently concentrated on designing a retrievals process which utilises off-the-shelf technology to deliver safe, accelerated removal of the hazard.

Trials to remove the deflector plates on top of the silos are progressing well and the disposal of industrial vacuums used in the transfer tunnel of the facility as low-level waste is a significant step.

The retrievals programme is scheduled to report on a revised design approach early in the New Year, which will give greater clarity on cost and schedule.

NDA assurance activities

The NDA continues to intervene at Sellafield where performance shows cause for concern as well as providing routine performance monitoring, sanction assurance, procurement assurance (approval of strategies and procurement placements) and ad-hoc targeted assurance. A major part of assurance activities during the last six months has been assurance of Performance Plan 14.

Since our last report to the WCSSG, NDA interventions have included:

Programme and Project Review Group (PPRG) - this group reviews project performance for underlying trends, carries out detailed reviews and appoints a Business Intervention Lead (BIL) to develop more intrusive intervention plans and work with SL to ensure projects are re-established on a firm footing.

To date BILs have been appointed to the Evaporator D project, SDP, the Security Enhancement & Resilience Project, and the Separation Area Ventilation (SAV) Project.

BILs have now successfully completed their involvement with SAV and SDP, and ongoing management will be undertaken by the NDA’s Sellafield Programme Team (led by Alyson Armett), this is a positive step in the progress of these projects.

Other key areas of focus include:

- understanding the root cause of the dip in performance in the MSSS retrievals project and reviewing the SL recovery plan

- scrutinising SL plans for exiting the current project pause in PFCS - completing assurance of the Vitrification Throughput Improvement Plan (VTIP) and the

Magnox Throughput Improvement Plan (MTIP)

The NDA has now completed:

• an early phase review of the Box Encapsulation Plant project which will be an important downstream facility for the management of MSSS retrieval. This led to the project delivery strategy being re-examined

• a joint review with SL of the strategy to provide site resilience in the event of a severe accident or emergency

Additional activity includes:

• a joint review with SL of the Design Services Alliance contract

• a review of the Tier 2 supply chain and the effectiveness of SL's engagement and management of it

• a review of the revised cost estimate, schedule and business case for the Separation Area

Ventilation (SAV) project and monitoring delivery improvement initiatives. The impact of the late completion of SAV on the wider decommissioning programme is also being examined

• a number of significant business case reviews have been undertaken including bulk sludge and fuel retrievals, First Generation Magnox Storage Pond (FGMSP) export and Sludge Packaging Plant 1

The NDA has incentivised SL to begin work on developing the Post Operational Clean-Out Strategy (POCO) for Thorp and Magnox Reprocessing when operations end at the plants towards the end of this decade. Work so far on this strategy was presented to the Spent Fuel Management and Nuclear Materials Working Group of the WCSSG.

Benchmarking activities have also been undertaken initially focusing on major project cost and duration estimate comparisons. This will help define and implement best practice and inform discussions with SL as part of the PP14 assurance work.

Performance Plan 14 (PP14) and 2014/2015 Performance Reporting

As reported to the last WCSSG meeting, SL delivered the plan in March 2014. Having devoted considerable time and effort to scrutinising the plan pre-delivery, we have since focused on collaboration with SL to agree on areas to resolve in order for the plan to be accepted in full. The current target date for acceptance is December 2014.

The plan contains more detail and greater clarity in the short term against which we can identify and agree challenging priorities, objectives and targets in order to drive the improvements in performance we require.

When accepted, the plan will provide the basis for the NDA and stakeholders to measure performance, in-keeping with the approach taken in PP11 and the Sellafield Plan and we will work with Sellafield to publish a new public plan around the end of 2014/15.

Performance during 2014/15 is being monitored via a set of success criteria communicated to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, with the priority tasks we want the site to focus on during the year incentivised through the normal incentive-based milestones.