In a few weeks, Samir Brikho hopes, his company will be starting work on one of the highest-profile energy projects in Britain. A consortium involving Amec is the preferred bidder to run Sellafield, one of the world’s biggest nuclear reprocessing and decommissioning facilities. It is the jewel in the crown of the state-owned nuclear operations, all of which are being sold in a long privatisation.

Most of Amec’s work is for big power companies after the engineering and services business completed a well-timed exit from civil construction last year. Nuclear is top of its agenda.

Mr Brikho, chief executive of Amec since 2006, says: “This is one of the most important things in our portfolio because if we are serious in cutting down on CO2 emissions we need to exhaust our possibilities on how we can develop wind and photovoltaic. But if we are serious about cutting emissions we have no other choice but to use nuclear.”

The company ramped up expertise in nuclear three years ago, when it bought a part of British Energy, the nuclear generator. Amec has 1,300 nuclear engineers in the UK and is fast building a division in North America. “We have been doing the same thing in Canada,” Mr Brikho says. “We have been buying a lot of nuclear skills and talents.”

Amec is working on restarting two mothballed nuclear plants in Canada as nuclear enjoys a renaissance. But it is the UK’s development of nuclear that most excites Mr Brikho, who is chairman of the Government’s Energy Excellence Group, which promotes energy trade and investment in Britain.

Energy investment in the UK and the Government’s hopes for a new generation of nuclear plants appeared to suffer a big setback this month when EDF, the French energy and nuclear power group, failed to agree a deal to buy British Energy. The British generator, which is partly owned by the Government, needs a partner or partners to build new nuclear stations.

However, Mr Brikho does not believe that the breakdown of talks will derail the UK’s nuclear aspirations. “It’s pity to see that EDF, as a world player, isn’t taking this opportunity, but this is not the end of the nuclear development, it’s just the start.”

There is big money in running Sellafield. The contract will be worth £1.3 billion a year for Amec and its partners Areva, the French nuclear group, and URS, the US engineering group. It will run for five years, with the possibility of an extension to 17 years.

Reprocessing spent fuel and decommissioning old nuclear reactors are by definition end processes. However, Mr Brikho sees reprocessing as a core part of the nuclear skills and industrial base that will deliver the next generation of nuclear power: He says: “We have a number of tasks: how we take care of the waste, bring the whole site to how it was before, how are we able to develop skills and talents in West Cumbria and in the UK to take this success story and multiple it and implement it somewhere else in the world.”

He recognises that this will not happen overnight. The UK has not built a nuclear power station for more than 20 years and now has to develop skills in future engineering graduates.

“The message has to be that as we want to develop nuclear skills we have a 40-year plan, that engineering in nuclear is going to be wanted for the next 40 years. Graduates at present are getting a degree in nuclear decommissioning, not nuclear development. We need to have a second line in parallel to decommissioning to take us to the second level. It may take us a decade or so; it is not a matter of a couple of years.”

Mr Brikho is also an enthusiast for the general prospects for energy in Britain. With the expected growth of green energy and nuclear, he predicts that UK-based energy companies can increase domestic and international revenues from $180 billion (£98.3 billion) now to $400 billion by 2030, taking employment from 600,000 to a million.

However, growth may depend on changes to the planning system. The inquiry into Sizewell B, Britain’s newest nuclear generator, in the early 1980s, lasted three years. The Government is attempting to simplify and speed up planning applications for large infrastructure projects, although the planning Bill is facing opposition in the Commons. A shake-up for the planning system is one of the few ways that the Government can exert a direct influence over energy. It has ruled out subsidies for nuclear, relying on the interest of companies to want to build UK stations. Some experts have questioned whether a market route will be successful. There is no guarantee that companies will want to build here as opposed to doing so in faster-growing economies.

Mr Brikho believes that government commitment to having new nuclear as a key part of its energy mix is important. He says: “There has been at least a very clear message, that the Government is supporting the plans for nuclear. This is a very important step and we shouldn’t underestimate the importance of the commitment of a country to a plan.”

Amec is one of Britain’s engineering success stories, operating in 30 countries and focused on high added-value work – what the Government vaunts as the future for British industry.

However, as some countries become more protectionist in energy policies as prices soar, does Mr Brikho see self-sufficiency as a growing trend? “God did not give everyone oil and gas. Many countries would like to be sitting on some kind of resources, but that isn’t the case. That’s why you have unions and agreements. But these things are very dynamic, very fluid. Who would have thought that Angola would be interesting for the US? Suddenly, Angola is supplying the US with oil which they didn’t have before.”

Mr Brikho is hoping that the UK will have a similar renaissance in energy influence with the relaunch of its nuclear industry.

CV

Born
May 3, 1958, Lebanon. Moved to Sweden as a child

Education
1978 Master of Science in Thermal Technology, Royal High School of Technology, Stockholm
1991 Young Managers Programme, Insead, France
2000 Senior Executive Programme, Stanford, US

Career
October 2006-present Chief executive of Amec
2006 Head of ABB Power Systems, Switzerland; chairman of ABB Lummus Global
2003-05 Chief executive of ABB Lummus Global, Switzerland
2002-03 Senior vice-president international business, Alstom, France
2000-02 Chief international operations officer, Alstom, Belgium and France
1999-2001 Chief executive of ABB-Alstom Kraftwerke, Germany
1999-2000 Managing director of steam plant business, Alstom Power, Belgium
1997-99 Senior vice-president, steam turbines and generators, ABB Kraftwerke, Germany
1983-97 Various management positions with Asea and ABB Power Generation in Sweden, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Switzerland and Germany

Interests
Skiing and water sports

Q&A

If you could change one thing in the financial and commercial environment, what would it be?
I would reduce taxes - both corporate and personal

Who is or was your mentor?
Jürgen Dorman, former chief executive of ABB

Does money motivate you?
Yes, but it is by no means the only thing that motivates me

What was the most important event in your working life?
Being promoted three grades in one go and realising it was time to deliver on my potential

What gadget must you have?
Anything that helps to speed up communications

What does leadership mean to you?
It involves many different characteristics, but perhaps the most important is setting a clear vision for your team

Which business person do you most admire?
Lakshmi Mittal, for the way he has built his global business

How do you relax?
Recently, I have been discovering the world of opera. I used to play myself when I was younger; now I enjoy hearing others create beautiful music