STOCKHOLM (AFX) – Sweden’s Forsmark nuclear power plant fails to meet standard safety requirements, according to a critical internal report made public six months after a serious incident at the plant.

The internal report, written by Forsmark technicians and released late on Monday, cites ‘a degradation of the company’s security culture over a long period of time’.

An electricity failure at the plant on July 25, 2006, led to the immediate shutdown of the Forsmark 1 reactor after two of four backup generators, which supply power to the reactor’s cooling system, malfunctioned for about 20 minutes.

Some experts have suggested that a potentially catastrophic reactor meltdown was narrowly avoided at the plant, located on Sweden’s east coast. But Swedish authorities have classed it a level-two incident on a scale from zero to seven.

The internal report said lax security has led to ‘potentially fatal accidents’. It cited among other things a nitrogen gas leak, employees handling live electrical wires, falls in the workplace and employees sent home for failing sobriety tests.

The Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate said it has asked prosecutors to investigate whether the Forsmark operator, FKA, broke the law in its response to the malfunction.

When the power supply failed, the reactor was kept warm until the next day. Under regulations, the reactor is supposed to be cooled down as soon as possible.

Green Party spokeswoman Maria Wetterstrand called for an international independent inquiry into Swedish nuclear safety and said Forsmark’s chief executive ought to be replaced.

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afp/ic

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SEOUL (XFN-ASIA) – South Korea has announced plans to spend 2.44 trln won over five years to build homegrown light-water nuclear reactors and develop fuel technology.

‘If this five-year plan succeeds, South Korea will have core technology for nuclear power and be allowed to export the technology,’ said Kim Young-Shik, director of the science ministry’s nuclear bureau.

South Korea is ranked sixth after the US, France, Japan, Russia and Germany in terms of the use of nuclear technology and safety, the ministry said.

The country operates 19 nuclear plants which generate about 40 pct of its electricity. It hopes to boost its reliance on nuclear energy to 60 pct by 2035.

(1 usd = 940.25 won)

afp

STOCKHOLM, Sweden – Sweden’s nuclear authority on Monday asked prosecutors to investigate whether the operator of a nuclear power plant broke the law in its response to a malfunction last year.

Two reactors at the Forsmark plant, 60 miles north of Stockholm, were shut down in July after two backup generators malfunctioned during a power failure. They went back on the grid two months later after security upgrades.

In its complaint to prosecutors, the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate said plant managers acted too slowly in cooling down one of the reactors after the incident. Such a decision was not made until one day after the July 25 incident, the inspectorate said.

Prosecutors will now review the complaint and decide whether to press charges against the operator, Forsmarks Kraftgrupp AB, for nuclear safety violations. The company is controlled by state-owned energy group Vattenfall AB.

Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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jfr

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WASHINGTON (AFX) – A proposed multi-billion dollar agreement by oil giants Repsol YPF SA of Spain and Royal Dutch Shell to help commercialise Iranian gas deposits could trigger US sanctions, a senior US official said.

The Iranian news agency ISNA reported on Sunday that Iran signed a preliminary agreement with Repsol and Shell to produce liquefied natural gas from Iran’s South Pars gas field in a deal worth some 10 bln usd.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the investment agreement, if confirmed, would likely trigger a US investigation and possible sanctions under US law.

The 1996 Iran-Libya Sanctions Act requires the US president to impose sanctions on companies which invest more than 20 mln usd in Iran’s energy sector.

‘The people who deal with those laws on a daily basis in their application I’m sure will take a look at this particular deal,’ McCormack said of the reported agreement involving Repsol and Shell.

‘If there’s an investment greater than a certain amount, as specified in US law, then our folks, our lawyers, take a look at it and the policy-makers take a look at it, and see if there’s any further steps that we, as a government, take,’ he said.

McCormack refused to speculate on what possible sanctions Repsol and Shell, which has operations in the US, could face if they go through with the South Pars investment.

The Iran-Libya Sanctions Act lists six possible punitive measures, including the denial of US export licenses, credit guarantees and bank loans to entities found in contravention of the law.

The Iranian news agency quoted the head of the National Iranian Oil Company, Gholam Hossein Nozari, saying a final decision on the deal, which he described as the biggest project of its kind in Iran, would be made later this year.

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afp/jsa

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LYON (AFX) – The US agrochemical giant Monsanto was fined 15,000 eur (19,000 usd) in a French court for misleading the public about the environmental impact of its flagship herbicide Roundup.

A former chairman of Monsanto Agriculture France was found guilty of false advertising for presenting Roundup as biodegradable and claiming that it left the soil clean after use. Monsanto’s French distributor Scotts France was also fined 15,000 eur.

Environmental and consumer rights campaigners brought the case in 2001 on the basis that glyphosate, Roundup’s main ingredient, is classed as ‘dangerous for the environment’ and ‘toxic for aquatic organisms’ by the European Union.

Both defendants were ordered to pay damages of 5,000 eur to the Brittany Water and Rivers association and 3,000 eur to the CLCV consumers group.

The water association said the verdict, which is to be published in the influential Le Monde daily, ‘puts an end to Monsanto’s lies’ and was ‘excellent news for water protection’.

A spokesman for Monsanto France, which plans to appeal, said the have rdict does not call into question the usefulness of the Roundup range of products’.

‘There is a relationship of trust between our products and their users and we believe that consumers will continue to use Roundup.’

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afp/joy

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LONDON (AFX) – Senior banker Andrea Madarassy today had her 1 mln stg sex discrimination legal action against Nomura International unanimously rejected at the Appeal Court.

Hungarian-born Madarassy was ordered to pay Nomuras legal costs — estimated at 300,000 stg, with 80,000 stg due within 28 days — but is backed by the Equal Opportunities Commission, which is footing the bill.

The three sitting judges refused her leave to take the long-running dispute to the House of Lords. Their decision upholds the earlier findings of the Employment Appeal Tribunal, which said in April last year that no sex discrimination had occurred.

Madarassy had claimed her bosses at Nomura International ‘abused and humiliated’ her while she was pregnant and made her redundant after she gave birth.

She joined Nomura’s equity capital market division in January, 2000, and was made redundant in September, 2001.

Speaking after the court’s decision, Madarassy said she was disappointed by the outcome but thought it important to ‘raise the issue of the treatment of pregnant women in the workplace, particularly in the City’.

Nomura International’s Stephen Sidebottom said the company’s decision to defend the case had been vindicated.

‘We have maintained throughout that Andrea was not discriminated against – neither for being a woman nor a mother – when made redundant in 2001, and at every stage the courts have agreed,’ he said.

‘We recognise that accepting the loss of ones job, for whatever reason, can be difficult and hope todays judgment will encourage Andrea to put these years of litigation behind her’.

Meanwhile, the Appeal Court judges also upheld the tribunal’s ruling Madarassy pay 2,000 stg to Nomura towards their Tribunal costs.

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ro/am/cw

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NEW DELHI (AFX) – Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has signed an agreement in New Delhi to help build new nuclear power plants in India as part of moves to revitalise ties between the two former Cold War allies.
In the memorandum of intent, Putin promised four more nuclear reactors for the flagship Kudankulam nuclear plant which Russia is building in southern Tamil Nadu — a state that already has two Russian 1,000-megawatt reactors.

The Russians also promised to co-operate in building ‘atomic energy stations according to Russian plans at new locations in the Indian republic.’

Energy-hungry India, which is seeking new sources of fuel to sustain its booming economy, welcomed moves by Russia to help ‘in the expansion of our nuclear sector,’ Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said after the signing.

‘Russia and India believe that atomic energy will furnish an indispensable source energy for future generations,’ the two nations said in a joint declaration.

The passage last year of a landmark US-Indian deal allowing New Delhi access to civilian nuclear technology after decades of isolation has unleashed an international race to supply the Indian civilian nuclear energy market.

Promises of more peaceful nuclear cooperation and military deals have been the highlights of Putin’s two-day visit (which ends tomorrow) during which Russia is seeking to counter India’s warming relations with the United States.

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afp/amb

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VILNIUS (AFX) – General Electric Co has expressed an interest in a project to build a new nuclear power plant in Lithuania, officials said.

‘Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas today had a meeting with representatives of General Electric, who said the company wants to take part in the construction of the new nuclear plant,’ the prime minister’s spokeswoman said.

‘The prime minister said that an open tender is to be announced for the construction of the new reactor and invited General Electric to take part in it,’ she added.

The project concerns the construction of a new nuclear power station to replace Lithuania’s Ignalina plant, which uses reactors similar to the one that exploded at Chernobyl in 1986, provoking the world’s worst nuclear disaster.

Lithuania promised the European Union, which the Baltic state joined in 2004, to shut down Ignalina by 2009.

A recent feasibility study showed that a new single-reactor plant with a capacity of 800 megawatts, or a two-reactor, 1,600-mw facility would require an investment of 2.5-4 bln eur.

German energy giant E.ON has already expressed interest in the project, while France’s Areva group, Canada’s AECL, and Mitsubishi of Japan have said they are ready to supply nuclear technologies to build the new facility.

The electricity companies of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania recently set up a working group with their Polish counterpart to discuss bringing Poland into the project.

A feasibility study conducted last year by the Baltic energy companies predicted the new facility would not come onstream before 2015.

If Poland is brought on board, the capacity of the plant could be increased to 3,200 Megawatts, with a corresponding hike of the final price tag, to 5 bln eur.

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afp/har

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PARIS (AFX) – EADS unit Airbus said it has won a firm order from US carrier Spirit Airlines for 30 A319 planes, to be delivered between 2009 and 2013.

The catalogue price for the order totals 1.8 bln usd, but discounts are usually applied.

In 2004, Airbus sold 15 planes to Spirit, which had options to purchase an additional 50 planes within the A320 family of single-aisle jets.

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js/rar

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LONDON (AFX) – Cookson Group PLC announced 80 job losses among a fundamental restructuring of its manufacturing operation which includes the closure of its Wrexham factory and the majority of its Birmingham stamping operation both of which will transfer to Thailand.

The electronics, ceramics and precious metals company said it is proposing a fundamental restructuring of its manufacturing business which has continued to suffer from weakening demand in the industry overall and increasing competition from low-cost imports.

It added certain other products will increasingly be sourced from the group’s US-based precious metals business and its Dublin sales office will close, with the Irish market being served direct from the UK as well as through a local distributor.

A statement from the company said, as well as the job losses, the initiatives will result in annualised cost savings of approximately 2.0 mln stg, at a one-off cash restructuring cost in 2007 of approximately 1.8 mln stg and capital expenditure of 600,000 stg.

Cookson, which consists of a manufacturing operation producing alloy materials, components and semi-finished and finished jewellery, and a distribution and logistics operation supplying these products to manufacturers, designers, independent jewellers and retailers, said trading in its UK Precious Metals business, meanwhile, has continued in line with expectations over recent months.

However, it added, the UK market remains subject to increasing low cost imports and hence these measures are necessary in order to ensure competitiveness.

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nes

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