A consortium including Amec, the British engineering group, Areva of France and Washington Division of the US surprised the nuclear industry yesterday by snatching a £6.75 billion contract to clean up Sellafield from under the noses of some of Britain and America's biggest nuclear experts.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) revealed that the Nuclear Management Partners (NMP) consortium had beaten stiff competition from three other bidders.

News that the nuclear power station developer Areva will be involved in Sellafield in the long term has increased speculation that the site in Cumbria will become home to one of the UK's new generation of nuclear power stations.

Areva works closely with EDF, the French energy giant, which has been considering Sellafield as a potential site.

Bob Pedde, of Washington Division, part of the URS Corporation, the construction and engineering group, will head the consortium that is set to take over day-to-day management of Sellafield in November.

He refused to comment on why his consortium had won the contract, other than to say that it had offered best value for money to the NDA.

“The contract is designed to last for 17 years in five-year increments and we intend to be there for the long term,” he said. The NDA said that the contract is worth £1.3 billion a year, plus annual fees of £50 million.

Prospect, the main union at Sellafield, welcomed the award yesterday, saying that Amec in particular had strong connections with the local community. Mike Graham, Prospect national secretary for the North West, said: “This was something of a surprise but is nevertheless welcome. Amec and Areva have shown that they are keen to develop commercial opportunities at Sellafield.”

However, Greenpeace expressed concern that Sellafield's future would be in predominantly foreign hands. Ben Ayliffe, head of Greenpeace's nuclear campaign, said: “The degree to which the NDA has bent over backwards to accommodate foreign companies beggars belief.

"Not only could this contract be worth £22 billion of taxpayers' money, they have also waived the insurance indemnity meaning that public money could be used to sort out any accidents that occur on site.”

The losing bidders included Fluor of the US, which had teamed up with Japanese group Toshiba; a consortium made up of Bechtel and Babcock & Wilcox of the US and Serco of the UK; and CH2M Hill, the US engineering contractor.

However, NMP now finds itself in the throes of a dispute with Sellafield's 10,000 workers. After months of negotiations, the employees have rejected a 2 per cent pay settlement and will ballot on industrial action this month.

They are expected to vote for a strike, which would shut down the plant for up to a week.

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