Dennis Spurgeon, assistant secretary for nuclear energy in the US Department of Energy, is being considered as chairman of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority by the Department for Business, The Times has learnt.

The shortlisting of Mr Spurgeon comes as several large US companies seek to manage the NDA's reprocessing centre at Sellafield. The contract is seen as the jewel in the crown of the £73 billion break-up and sale of Britain's last state-owned nuclear assets. The US companies vying for the business include Fluor, Bechtel and Washington International Holdings.

The chairmanship of the NDA became vacant last summer when Sir Anthony Cleaver retired. Since then, Nick Baldwin has been acting as interim chairman and Ian Roxburgh is chief executive.

The Government is thought to have raised the chairman's salary to attract more candidates and is offering about £200,000 for a London position rather than £80,000 for a Cumbria-based job.

Mr Spurgeon was nominated for his current position by President Bush and was sworn in two years ago, the first person to hold the position for ten years. He is responsible for America's nuclear energy enterprise, which includes technology, research and development, management of the infrastructure and support for nuclear education.

Prior to joining the Government, Mr Spurgeon was chief executive of USEC, a supplier of enriched uranium. He was also chief operating officer of the former United Nuclear Corporation, manufacturing core reactors for the US Navy. He has also worked for the General Atomic Company, developing civil nuclear plants.

A Department for Business official said: “There is no time scale. What is important is getting the right person for the job.” However, it is believed that a decision is near.

The priorities for the new NDA chairman will be to complete the sale of the management contract for Sellafield and to ensure that rising costs for cleaning up the country's ageing nuclear installations do not spiral any further. Last year they climbed 16 per cent to £73 billion. The Sellafield sale is due to be finished by the summer.

The NDA is also struggling to interest the private sector in some parts of the work that is set to be privatised. The dismantling of Magnox reactors in the South of England was put on ice last autumn after failing to attract bidders to manage the process for the long term.

Malcolm Wicks, the Energy Minister, has told MPs that he believes there is no collusion between the six largest energy companies over pricing.

He told the Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Committee that he had not seen any evidence that the six were acting together and called on those who made the charges to produce evidence to back their claims.

MPs questioned the Energy Minister over why bills were rising, saying there was concern over the way the market operates at a time when three of the big six have put up their rates for domestic customers in the past six weeks, pushing the average annual bill above £1,000.

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