No comment on Japan nuclear fuel return date - BNFL
Date: 24-Apr-02
Country: JAPAN
Environmental group Greenpeace last week warned the fuel was due to be returned in June, coinciding with the soccer World Cup. It said the shipment could become a terrorist target, posing a security threat to the event being held in Japan and South Korea.
BNFL's chief executive Norman Askew, speaking at a news conference in Tokyo, said he could not say when the shipment would be returned because of security reasons.
"Nearer the time...people will be informed, but we do not declare...too far ahead of time," Askew said.
Kansai Electric Power Co Inc, Japan's second-largest power utility, is due to ship back MOX fuel, a blend of uranium and plutonium oxides, to Britain this year.
The fuel was the centre of controversy in late 1999 when Kansai Electric discovered that BNFL had deliberately falsified data on a consignment of MOX fuel that it had received.
State-owned BNFL in July 2000 agreed to take back the shipment and pay 40 million pounds ($58 million) in compensation.
Askew said there were no issues that still needed to be resolved over the return of the fuel.
"There are no open issues...everything has been decided," he said.
He said BNFL's ties with Kansai Electric, which had become strained after the data falsification, had improved but were not at the level seen before 1999.
"We've come a long way in two years...but we still have work to do," Askew said.
"I don't want to give any impression that we believe we're now back where we were two-and-a-half years ago, because we are not," he added.
He said no new contract had been concluded with any Japanese power firm since then, although BNFL still sees Japan as a major market despite the delay in the Japanese industry's plan to use MOX fuel.
Askew said he did not think there was a credible alternative to nuclear energy from the viewpoint of security of supply and the need to achieve environmental targets to cut carbon dioxide.