BNFL announces surprise departure of chief executive

British Nuclear Fuels, the state-owned reprocessing company, yesterday announced the surprise departure of its chief executive, Norman Askew.

Mr Askew, who joined BNFL in March 2000 at the height of a safety scandal over the falsifying of nuclear fuel records, will leave at the end of July but will not be receiving a pay-off. He earned £509,000 last year and is on a rolling one-year contract.

News of his departure comes just a few weeks before publication of the Government's energy White Paper which is expected to rule out the construction of any new nuclear power stations for the foreseeable future.

Although he was known in Whitehall as "Stormin Norman", Mr Askew, 60, said there had been no falling out either with ministers or with the BNFL chairman, Hugh Collum. Nor had he become frustrated with delays in the part-privatisation of the company.

Rather, he had decided to leave now to make way for a new chief executive who could see BNFL through its next stage of development and beyond.

The partial sale of the company is not likely to happen until 2006 at the earliest and will require BNFL to be freed of its £40bn in nuclear liabilities first. This will not happen until the Government has established its new Liabilities Management Agency which will take responsibility for all Britain's civil nuclear clean-up costs. Even if a bill paving the way for the LMA is introduced this autumn, the agency is unlikely to be up and running until spring, 2005.

Mr Askew said he planned to take up a number on non-executive posts including, it is understood, the chairmanship of a public company.

BNFL reported a record £2.3bn loss last year after taking a £1.94bn charge to cover increased nuclear liabilities and the early closure of the Calder Hall and Chapelcross Magnox reactors. But its underlying performance improved with operating profits reaching £22m against a £210m loss the previous year.

The company has appointed headhunters to search internally and externally for a new chief executive. Mr Askew said there were one or two potential candidates within BNFL.