Storage centre for radioactive waste

PARIS: The Gaiya joint-venture (Technip-Ingérop), was awarded a contract by ANDRA to be the main contractor of the future Industrial Geological Storage Center (CIGEO — Centre industriel de stockage géologique) planned to be located in Meuse/Haute-Marne (East of France). This contract is in the framework of the French law of June 28th, 2006, making ANDRA responsible for designing and setting up a storage center for high-activity and medium-activity, long-life radioactive waste. It covers CIGEO’s conceptual and front-end phases.

Technip and Ingérop, are engineering companies, that are closely combining their respective skills and expertise in nuclear installations, underground facilities and large projects to assist ANDRA in carrying out this project, which is exceptional in both its scope and technological requirements, as a press note claims. CIGEO is designed to provide long-term confinement for the waste and to ensure that the storage is reversible.

This contract will be executed by Technip’s centers in Lyon and Paris, and by Ingérop centers in Courbevoie and Clermont-Ferrand, France. The first conceptual study phase, to be conducted in 2012, will prepare the public consultation that will take place in 2013.