CORE welcomes last night’s decision by the new German Government to ban further reprocessing of their spent nuclear fuel at Sellafield as from 1st January 2000. The decision is a major blow to BNFL’s reprocessing business at the THORP plant and may well lead to cancellations of contracts from other European customers in the near future. “ This sensible and not unexpected decision by Germany heralds a new and better future for West Cumbria and ironically for BNFL who must now belatedly deploy their resources into waste management and clean-up work. Such a significant loss of reprocessing business will hasten the demise of THORP and could well seal the fate of the new Sellafield MOX plant “ The German decision means the loss of around 12% of THORP’s baseload orderbook and around 40% of the plant’s second ten-year orderbook – a loss from which CORE believes THORP will not recover – there being no other new contracts on the horizon from any other country to make up the German losses or further fill the orderbook. Whilst there remains the option for Germany to continue sending their spent fuel to Sellafield during 1999, CORE believes such transports will not be undertaken. Clearly, if the current negotiations between Germany and UK on the fate of German fuel already at Sellafield result in the fuel being returned to Germany, there would be no point in sending more fuel this year with no possibility of it being reprocessed by 1.1.2000. It appears unlikely that Germany will send fuel simply to have it stored long-term at Sellafield when plans to build stores at reactors in Germany are already underway. For information, German utilities have contracted around 1000 tonnes for THORP’s baseload, of which around 500 tonnes has already been transported to Sellafield. Of the 500 tonnes at Sellafield, little over 50 tonnes has actually been reprocessed to date. A further 1000 tonnes had been contracted by Germany for THORP’s second ten year period. It is currently unclear what decisions will be made about German plutonium at Sellafield. It seems now highly unlikely that Germany will wish to enter into any contracts for the new Sellafield MOX plant for which the UK Government continue to withold an operating licence.