Oldbury 2 licence extended until June 2011

10 February 2011

Unit 2 at the UK's Oldbury nuclear power plant has been given regulatory approval to continue operating until 30 June 2011, when unit 1 is also set to shut down. The 217 MWe Magnox reactor had been scheduled to shut down in mid-February. Magnox Ltd - recently created from the merger of Magnox North and Magnox South - said in a statement, "During this year the site has been planning for this project, undertaking work to support the period of extended generation of Reactor 2." Phil Sprague, site director at Oldbury, said: "We have worked hard with each of our regulators and they have no objection to extended generation on Reactor 2." The two reactors at Oldbury had been due to close at the end of 2008 but the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority requested permission from the regulator to operate beyond that date, earning revenue to help pay for decommissioning. Magnox Ltd has previously said that it may apply for a licence extension for one of the Oldbury units to continue operating until mid-2012 in order to use up spare fuel at the site. In October 2010, the Wylfa plant - the UK's only other operating Magnox plant - was granted permission to continue running its two 490 MWe units for a further two years until the end of 2012.