As announced following the original article, all reprocessing in the uk is to cease in 2018. This evaporator is due online in 2016, it will have a mere two years use. Is it wise to actively commission, or indeed actually complete this project, after all, it is almost double its budget up till now.
I wonder if the announcement of mothballing of evap d may be coming into focus in the NDAs (Governments) crystal ball.
To be fair, it would be the natural progression following closure of Mox, B205, Thorp, and ultimately the Vitrification plants.
These four plants ARE Sellafield, yes there will be jobs to clean up the mess, how many? That is the question for the future of West Cumbria.
Being let down gently is never a good feeling.

I have to agree with Derek. I worked at Sellafield for over 15 years, leaving as a pg10 in the projects group a few year ago. Every major project that has ever been run at BNFL has had time and cost over runs, look at Pond 5, THORP, VIT 1&2, VIT LINE 3, MOX, etc., etc. The list could go on and on and on, and then there's the decommissioning projects!!

If the buck stops with Todd Wright and his executive team the answer is easy, sack them!! In the real world CEO's and executives lose their jobs if they or the company doesn't perform. It appears that Sellafield still isn't in the real world!!

I also agree with the comments from Observer. I just looked at the Sellafield Sites website. The majority of the executive team are American, why are we not filling these roles with experienced locals. I'm sure that many great people left BNFL and now hold down very important jobs elsewhere that would be ideal to rejoin Sellafield. I'm sure Sellafield could benefit from experience gained outside of the insular nuclear industry.

In the 90's BNFL was sending people to the USA on decommissioning clean-up projects because BNFL had the expertise. Here we are 20 years later with hardly any experienced BNFL people in the Sellafield executive team.

Basically it stinks and the Government and the NDA have an awful lot to answer for!!

This article basically implies that the overspend is a result of poor performance. While this is a part of it, another part is changing scope of the project - partly increased seismic substantiation following Fukashema but more importantly removing the need for an Evaporator E, saving the taxpayer £600m at a future date. £600m-£270m=£330m savings.

Surely a British management team could have attained this magnitude of overspend with deadlines not having been met? The big difference then would have been that instead of millions of GBP being directed to America, the earned money would have had a base in GB therefore the economy would have been helped.
No need for foreigners to kick us when we're down, we make a good enough job of it ourselves.

You did indeed, Chuck - The Independent followed up a Whitehaven News story back in February, when the overspend was estimated at £100million. Today's story updates the figure.

I'm sure I read about this overspend in the Independent some months ago.

Sellafield contract goes over budget and over schedule.

I thought the WN reported on news? This is absolutely run of the mill, business as usual for Sellafield so why even mention it? LOL