US giant Fluor makes last-ditch bid for £5bn clean-up contract

Fluor, the US engineering giant, has mounted a last-ditch action to persuade the Government to allow it to buy the clean-up company British Nuclear Group (BNG).

Fluor executives are arguing that their acquisition of the state-owned firm, which runs the Sellafield site, would be the best way to safeguard the jobs of its 12,000-strong UK workforce. They also promise to maintain BNG as a British entity.

UK-based executives from Fluor met officials from the Department of Trade and Industry last week to press their case. The company has also been seeking a meeting with Geoffrey Norris, No 10's senior policy adviser.

The Government rejected Fluor's £400m bid for BNG earlier this month because it wants to hold an open sale process. This decision is due to be formally approved at the end of the month. But privately, Fluor knows its chances of bringing about a government U-turn on the sale are slim.

The sale of BNG has been bogged down by disagreements between its parent company, BNFL, and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), which owns the Sellafield site in Cumbria. Last month, BNFL and the NDA resolved to break up BNG rather than sell it in its entirety, which had been the original plan. Fluor went ahead with its own takeover bid for the company anyway.

BNG holds the current contracts to operate and decommission the Sellafield site and the Magnox reactor sites, dotted around the country. Whoever buys BNG will be in prime position to win the new five-year Sellafield contract, worth £5bn. This contract, being prepared by the NDA, will carry an option to be extended by a further five years; this is worth another estimated £5bn.

The Amicus union is also angry about how the sale of BNG has been handled and the uncertainty this has caused staff.