The LLW/ILW safe management project in Iraq will be carried out by a consortium that will include, apart from NUKEM, German DBE TECHNOLOGY and Slovakian JAVYS. Other companies will be involved, too.
Strategically important for Iraq, the project will last three years and is financed by the European Commission. It is expected that the project will prepare the ground for the licensing and construction of a LLW/ILW storage facility.
Iraq had a significant nuclear program in the past, but all the nuclear facilities and sites were destroyed in 1991. Following several international initiatives, the IAEA launched the Iraq Decommissioning Project (IDP) in 2006 aiming to assist Iraq in planning for, and decommissioning of, the damaged nuclear facilities, and manage the resulting radioactive waste, remediating the contaminated sites, and drafting the relevant legal and regulatory framework. In 2009, the European Union launched a coordinated effort to contribute to this program.
The consortium of NUKEM, DBE TECHNOLOGY GmbH (DBE TEC) and JAVYS a.s., supported by MCM, Healvita Group and MUE Group, will be responsible for delivering the documents necessary for the final siting, licensing, and later construction of a near-surface engineered disposal facility. The repository is intended to accept all waste from past activities in Iraq, as well as future waste to be produced in the country.
The EUR1.75m three-year project, which is funded and managed by the European Commission (EC), is of strategic importance to Iraq and will involve close contacts and interaction with its Government as well as with the relevant decommissioning and radioactive waste management operators and regulators, including the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST), which is an operator of nuclear facilities, and the Ministry of Environment (MoE) via the Radiation Protection Center, the Iraqi regulatory body.
As communicated by the EC, “the project is of paramount importance in assisting Iraq in planning for, and decommissioning of, the existing nuclear facilities, radioactive waste management, and remediation of contaminated sites. We welcome this consortium which brings international expertise in this field.” The IAEA endorses this important project.
“The project is a great opportunity for the EC, Iraq and the consortium to bring together the combined waste management expertise of NUKEM, DBE TEC, JAVYS and their partners to contribute to Iraq’s decommissioning strategy. We are delighted that our Consortium was chosen in an international tendering procedure to perform this important work,” explained Ulf Kutscher, Managing Director of NUKEM Technologies GmbH.
NUKEM Technologies GmbH is a German engineering company and a wholly owned subsidiary of Atomstroyexport. NUKEM specializes in the nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel (SNF) management and decommissioning of nuclear and radioactive facilities (all types of reactors and nuclear fuel cycle facilities). The company is a European market leader carrying out the three largest projects in Eastern Europe – a dry cask storage facility for VVER-440 reactor fuel on the Kozloduy NPP site in Bulgaria, a dry cask storage facility for RBMK-1500 reactor fuel and a solid nuclear waste disposal facility at the Ignalina NPP in Lithuania. NUKEM’s track record includes dozens of large-scale projects, among them a nuclear waste disposal facility at the Bohunice NPP (Slovakia), nuclear waste management facilities at the Balakovo and Leningrad NPPs, a solid nuclear waste disposal facility at the Chernobyl NPP in Ukraine, end-to-end decommissioning of the Kahl NPP in Germany, and a dry cask storage facility for VVER-440 reactor fuel at the Dukovany NPP in the Czech Republic.
NUKEM Technologies GmbH has extensive engineering expertise and possesses advanced nuclear technologies proved by international reference projects.
