OREANDA-NEWS. Joined by numerous partners, local stakeholders and employees, Robert Davies, AREVA UK CEO, Steve Topping, Director of AREVA’s Westlake office and Arnaud Gay, Senior Vice President International Operations of AREVA’s Back End Business Group, have inaugurated a new UK office in Westlakes on July 2nd. The new office will support AREVA’s ongoing decommissioning and waste management work at Sellafield as well as the development of the AREVA Convert project.

AREVA Convert is a plan to build a new facility at Sellafield to transform the UK’s plutonium stockpile into MOX fuel (a mix of uranium and plutonium oxides).The project could create 2,000 construction jobs and mobilise around 1,000 full-time employees to support operations and maintenance of the future plant.

Speaking at the event, Arnaud Gay said: “With the opening of this new office, AREVA reinforces its commitment to the UK and will continue growing its operations and partnerships, especially in Cumbria. With a close relationship with Sellafield, we are continuing to provide a daily support to the activities on site and will tomorrow, thanks to AREVA Convert, be able to propose our proven technologies to transform plutonium into low carbon fuel.”

Steve Topping added “The Westlakes office will be vital to our growing operations with partners at Sellafield and be closer to our projects and customers. We are already working alongside Sellafield Ltd and the local supply chain on the Silos Direct Encapsulation Plant project together with our UK partners Atkins and Mace. Beyond that, this new office will support skilled employment, our interactions with local stakeholders and our integration in the community.”