SECURITY CATEGORY I- MARINE TRANSPORT OF MOX FUEL BETWEEN GERMANY AND THE UNITED KINGDOM

Till about 4 years ago, transports of Security Category I from or towards the United Kingdom (U.K.) were usually carried out as the standard combination of road/air/road transports. This possibility to carry out transports of Security Category I from or towards Germany per air was practically temporarily abolished about 4 years ago, due to decisions made by the competent German licensing authorities. The German licensing authorities decided that the IAEA requirements must be fulfilled to obtain the license. This means that either the transported material must be proved to be Low Dispersable Material (LDM), or that type C transport packages must be used. In 1993, neither the required LDM verifications nor type C transport packages were available, so that an alternative had to be found to the road/air/road transport route. In this paper, the required steps will be presented, from the choice of a concept up to the actual carrying out of the transport. The following points will be examined for this purpose: • working out the security concept and selection of a ship, • consultation with German and British authorities to agree on the security concept. • fulfilment of the regulations according to the INF code, • experience obtained from maritime transports carried out between Germany and the United Kingdom between October 1996 and April 1997.