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Envirocare Buys BNG America, Changes Name

Posted on: Friday, 3 February 2006, 15:00 CST

By JANE WARDELL

LONDON - British Nuclear Fuels PLC has sold its U.S. nuclear clean-up business BNG America to Envirocare of Utah LLC for $90 million, a person close to the deal said.

Envirocare marked the purchase by changing its name Friday to EnergySolutions, which takes in another operation it bought in October, Scientech's Decontamination and Decommissioning Division. Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions now has more than 1,000 workers in 14 states.

"With the acquisition of BNG America, EnergySolutions will have the depth and breadth of experience to pursue a broader set of business opportunities across the nuclear fuel cycle, including operations, decontamination, decommissioning and waste minimization and disposition," Steve Creamer, chief executive of EnergySolutions, said in a statement.

Arlington, Va.-based BNG America is involved in a U.S. Department of Energy project to test technologies for reprocessing or recycling of spent nuclear fuel, based at the DOE site at Savannah River, S.C.

Creamer said EnergySolutions wants to "help make recycling of spent fuel a reality in the United States." EnergySolutions also said it will continue to bid for decommissioning work in Britain. British Nuclear Fuels, the former parent of BNG America, is owned by the British government.

Since 1991, BNG America has managed projects at DOE sites, national laboratories, nuclear fuel plants, utilities and industrial sites across the country. It also helps operate Western Zirconium west of Ogden, Utah, which makes coatings for fuel rods. Western Zirconium in 2001 received the Utah Legislature's permission to ship low-level radioactive waste to Envirocare.

Scientech's Decontamination and Decommissioning Division manages the decommissioning of sites nationwide for government agencies, education facilities and commercial projects, according to Envirocare.

Envirocare was founded by Khosrow Semnani in the late 1980s. He sold it last year to a private equity group led by New York City-based Lindsay Goldberg & Bessemer, Peterson Partners and developer Steve Creamer's Creamer Investments.

Competitors in the radioactive-waste disposal business have complained Envirocare enjoyed an unfair advantage from the Utah Division of Radiation Control.

But their arguments were not successful, even after it was disclosed in 1966 that Semnani had given $600,000 in cash, gold coins and real estate to the division's director at the time, Larry Anderson.

Anderson said the money was just part of what he was owed for consulting work. Semnani said it was extortion. Semnani pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor tax charge and agreed to testify against Anderson, who was convicted of fraud and tax evasion, but not extortion.

Envirocare had been seeking to double its site in western Utah, but recently announced it was not going forward with that proposal at this time. Utah law provides that either the Legislature or the governor may veto such projects, and Gov. Jon Huntsman had said he would oppose the expansion. A bill making its way through the Legislature would allow the Legislature to override a gubernatorial veto.

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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