Sean McGarvey, president of the Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, today toured the Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. The MOX facility is one of the country’s first new nuclear projects in decades and has a local workforce of over 2,100 with nearly half of them in construction.
“The MOX project is an important regional and national project and is being built by America’s safest, most highly skilled and productive workforce,” according to McGarvey. He was joined by Michael Rencheck, president and chief executive officer of AREVA Inc. The group toured the MOX construction site with Kelly Trice, president and chief operating officer of Shaw AREVA MOX Services and met with employees who are building the facility for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration.
“Due to the dedicated work of our construction and management team, the MOX project is being built with a strong record of quality and safety,” Trice said. “We are rapidly approaching a new safety milestone of working 12 million hours without a lost workday due to injury.”
AREVA’s Rencheck stated, “The MOX project recently celebrated its fifth year of construction. We are very pleased to be a part of this team and to see that the proven MOX technology used for decades internationally will become a reality in the United States.”
“We are proud to provide the MOX project with the necessary skilled craft professionals needed to build this high-precision nuclear facility which will have a key role in our national security,” McGarvey said. “The employment opportunities offered at the MOX project are important to our workers, their families and the community. The MOX project also affords us the opportunity to implement specialized training for these craft professionals in order to arm them with the necessary skills that will allow them to not only finish this important nuclear nonproliferation project, but to also move on to other nuclear construction projects in the future. Our workforce is on the forefront of revitalizing the U.S. nuclear industry.”
Substantial progress continues being made on building the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF). During the past five years, 12 of the 16 auxiliary buildings to support construction and operation of the MFFF have been finished, and personnel have moved into a new technical support building.
Shaw AREVA MOX Services, LLC, comprised of Shaw’s Environmental & Infrastructure Group and AREVA, has a contract with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to design, build and operate a facility to convert surplus nuclear weapon-grade plutonium into reactor fuel for use in commercial nuclear power plants. This work supports NNSA’s nuclear nonproliferation program to eliminate surplus weapon-grade plutonium in the U.S. Under a 2000 agreement, the United States and Russia will dispose of 68 metric tons of surplus plutonium, enough material for approximately 17,000 nuclear weapons. For more information, visit www.moxproject.com.
Shaw’s Environmental & Infrastructure Group is a primary business unit of The Shaw Group Inc. (NYSE:SHAW), a leading global provider of engineering, construction, technology, fabrication, remediation and support services for clients in the energy, chemicals, environmental, infrastructure and emergency response industries. A Fortune 500 company with fiscal year 2011 annual revenues of $5.9 billion, Shaw has approximately 25,000 employees around the world and is a power sector industry leader according to Engineering News-Record’s list of Top 500 Design Firms. For more information, please visit Shaw’s website at www.shawgrp.com.
AREVA provides its customers with solutions for low-carbon power generation in North America and all over the world. As the leader in nuclear energy and a significant, growing player in the renewable energies sector, AREVA combines U.S. and Canadian leadership, access to worldwide expertise and a proven track record of performance. Sustainable development is a core component of AREVA’s strategy. Its more than 5,000 U.S. and Canadian employees work every day to make AREVA a responsible industrial player helping to supply ever cleaner, safer and more economical energy to the greatest number of people. AREVA Inc. is headquartered in Bethesda, Md. Visit us at http://us.areva.com or follow us at Twitter.
The Building and Construction Trades Department is an alliance of 13 national and international unions that collectively represent 2 million skilled craft workers in the United States and Canada. Visit us at www.BCTD.org, or follow us on Facebook or YouTube.
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