We are pleased to announce that JGC has entered into a service tie-up agreement with Energiewelke Nord GmbH (EWN), the world's largest nuclear facility decommissioning service company, for collaboration in the decommissioning of nuclear facilities and in the waste management area.

1. Contractual Party :
Energiewelke Nord GmbH (abbreviated as EWN)

In the former East Germany, EWN was an electric power company owning eight Russian-type PWR nuclear power plants. After the unification of East Germany and West Germany, EWN changed the services it provided, under a national policy, to the shutdown and decommissioning of those nuclear power plants. At present, as a national policy corporation, EWN has 1,400 specialists working on the decommissioning of the country's eight Russian-type PWR nuclear power plants, one of the world's largest decommissioning projects, and in doing so is accumulating vast experience and technical know-how in the field of decommissioning and in the area of the resultant waste management.

2. Services to be Provided:
Henceforth in Japan, there will be an increasing number of nuclear facility decommissioning projects. Against such a background, the two parties intend to combine JGC's extensive experience in the treatment/disposal of radioactive wastes and its advanced engineering capabilities with EWN's demonstrated decommissioning and waste management-related know-how. Their aim is to be ideally positioned to provide services of the foremost level in the world for nuclear facility decommissioning projects from both safety and economic viewpoints.

3. Future Japanese Market and Background to Present Activities:
In Japan, fifty-two nuclear power plants are now in service. Of those, twenty plants will have been in operation for thirty-years by 2010, at which point the facilities are subject to decommissioning or repair work in order to prolong their lives. The consequence is the creation of a highly prospective new market for decommissioning/dismantling services for these nuclear power plants and nuclear fuel cycle facilities, as well as for the disposal of wastes from decommissioning. Having been involved for more than thirty years in the design and construction of numerous radioactive waste treatment facilities and spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plants, JGC has acquired highly advanced technical skills and accumulated extensive know-how in relation to such services. Under a contract awarded to JGC in September of last year in a consortium with SGN of France and AEA Technology of the UK, JGC is now working on the basic design of a shelter implementation project for the Chernobyl Unit No.4 in Ukraine, in which EWN is collaborating with JGC. With the signing of the technical tie-up agreement with EWN, JGC is prepared to develop further stepped-up activities in the nuclear facility decommissioning market.