User:Innuserv

International Nuclear Services (INS) is wholly-owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), a non-departmental body of the British Government's Department of Energy and Climate Change. INS is a government company.

On behalf of NDA, INS manages contracts for services for the management of used nuclear fuel from both UK and overseas customers. It is also the world's most experienced global shipper of nuclear materials and provides consultancy services associated with nuclear material transport package design and licensing.

Background

INS was jointly owned by Sellafield Ltd and NDA until April 2008, after which the NDA chose to exercise its right to become the sole shareholder, prior to Sellafield Ltd being placed in to private ownership.

INS is a majority (62.5%) shareholder in Pacific Nuclear Transport Limited, whose other shareholders are Areva's Transport Nucleaire Internationale (TNI) (12.5%) and a Japanese consortium of utilities and trading companies (25%).

INS's primary role is to manage contracts with UK and overseas customer and optimise the income from those contracts for the NDA. The contracts are for a variety of services in the field of used nuclear fuel management. They include the transport of used nuclear fuel to Sellafield in the UK, either from within the UK, or from overseas nuclear power stations; the reprocessing of that fuel to separate wastes from the reusable materials that can be used for future energy generation; the management of those wastes; the manufacture of mixed oxide fuel using the recovered materials; and the repatriation of all products from reprocessing, covering recycled plutonium, uranium and also waste materials.

The vast majority of these nuclear fuel cycle services contracts were agreed by British Nuclear Fuels Limited, prior to its effective dissolution in November 2008. At this point all contracts with BNFL were novated to NDA. Many of these contracts date from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s and run for many decades, with all revenues from them now channelled to the NDA. This income helps fund the NDA's mission of cleaning up of the UK's historical civil nuclear liabilities.

Many of the spent fuel management contracts include, or lead to, the requirement to transport nuclear materials to and from the UK to overseas customers, mainly in Europe and Japan. INS, and its subsidiary, Pacific Nuclear Transport Limited (PNTL), have been undertaking these transports safely for 40 years, travelling more than five million miles without any incident involving the release of radioactivity.

INS's specialist nuclear transport capability has been identified by NDA as a strategic UK asset, which needs to be developed. Therefore it was instructed in 2011 to grow its bespoke nuclear transport business and to continue generating revenue from its engineering and package design and licensing consulting business. In addition, it is required to optimise the income that can be generated from existing contracts that involve the NDA's assets. These assets are mainly based at Sellafield in Cumbria, and include reprocessing; nuclear waste management; and the manufacturing of Mixed Oxide (MOX) nuclear fuel.

Fleet

INS operates on behalf of NDA and PNTL a fleet of ships dedicated to the transport of nuclear materials, including MOX fuel, plutonium, highly active waste and spent fuel. The PNTL fleet constitutes the following vessels: Pacific Grebe, Pacific Egret, Pacific Heron.

The fleet of NDA-owned vessels constitutes Oceanic Pintail and Atlantic Osprey.

Regulations

All of these vessels are certified by the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) to the appropriate classification of the International Code for the Safe Carriage of Packaged Irradiated Nuclear Fuel (the INF code), issued by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO). The operation of this fleet is supported by 24-hour emergency response arrangements that are required by international regulations.

Sites

INS has two offices in the UK. The head office is based at Warrington in Cheshire, where the majority of its staff are based. The second office is based at Pelham House in Cumbria, close to both the Sellafield site and NDA headquarters near Whitehaven. INS also operates a dedicated marine terminal at Ramsden Dock, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, with direct rail links to the Sellafield Ltd site.

In support of its international business INS has offices in Tokyo, Japan from which INS Japan KK manages the Japanese customer and stakeholders. It also has a subsidiary in France, (INS France SA) and in Germany, (INS Deutschland) both of which manage the continental Europe customer relationships and stakeholders.