UK Energy supplies face uncertainty this winter

Roy Anderson head of Nuclear Generation at British Energy ( appointed July 2004 , pay = £1.3 Mn. incl. £800K "bonus") has resigned and CEO Bill Coley has "taken direct control of nuclear operations." Today British Energy has 38 % of its nuclear capacity out of service, or 3,620 megawatts from a total of 9,568 megawatts.

British Energy supplies approx 20% of UK electricity from 8 nuclear power stations incorporating 12 nuclear power plants. They have recently revealed a series of engineering problems with cracked pipes and ensuing leaks.6 of British Energy's 16 reactors are shut to repair parts of the plants, some of which are more than 30 years old.

Current plans for repairs are and re-starts are ;

2 units - Hunterston and Hinkley Point to restart by the end of December 2006 and the other 2 units ( 1 at each site) are scheduled to restart by the end of January. The 4 units will run at 70% capacity up to end March 2008.

The 2 units at Hartlepool , shut down in September will resume production in December, all this work will involve "investment" over the next 2 years in the region of £500/£600 Mn.

Production will be cut for at least 16 months - which results the company said today in a reduction in output of 8.2% (5 terawatt hours or more until at least March 2008) on forecast annual production - 61 to 63 terawatt hours of electricity (2005 national ouput 398 terawatt-hours)

Lakis Athanasiou, an analyst at Collins Stewart Ltd. in London is quoted on Bloomberg where he estimates that British Energy's full year output will be in a range from 48 terawatt hours to 56 terawatt hours.

Due to higher electricity wholesale prices , Company profits announced today zoomed from £212m to £481m rsulting in earnings per share rocketing 4 fold from 3.5p to 14.3p a share.

This will stop the Gubments plans for a £3.5 Bn sell off of part of its 65% holding - quite how it affects UK energy security it is difficult to calculate. It is manifest that the forthcoming 2 UK winter quarters will be met with significantly reduced spare production capacity

UPDATE 6.30 GMT
The shares (BGY.L) opened up 40 p down but ended today, up 8p today at 477p.

http://www.jobsite.co.uk/cgi-bin/vacdetails.pl?selection=920941166&src=rss_jbe

British Energy are looking for a Permanent Deputy in Information Management (£30/40K security vetted) for immediate employment at Sizewell.
They say ...

The last six months have been an exciting period of change for our Information Management Department, and it's not over yet,

You bet.

The applicant must also ......

* Have well-developed communication skills, and a methodical approach to problem solving.

Which seems to be required at all levels within the company.