THE Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (Enec) recently received six international ISO re-certifications from Intertek, a leading provider of quality and safety services including a full range of business process audit and support services to a wide range of industries around the world.

Enec underwent rigorous, impartial, comprehensive auditing and assessment by Intertek auditors to ensure that its operations conform to international standards.

Intertek assessed the corporation’s existing programmes for managing its nuclear projects and its integrated management system in order to award the following certifications: Quality Management System with ISO 9001:2008, Environmental Management System with ISO 14001:2004, Occupational Health and Safety Management System with Ohsas 18001:2007, IT Service Management with ISO 20000:2005, Information Security Management System with ISO 27001:2013 and finally Business Continuity Management System with ISO 22301:2012, as part of PAS 99:2012,  ‘Specification of common management system requirement.’

“By gaining these re-certifications, the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation continues its drive towards excellence focused on achieving quality, ensuring that the corporation’s systems are comprehensive, systematic, planned and documented, as well as maintaining its policies for environmental protection,” a statement said.

“These re-certifications assure that the corporation controls occupational health and safety risks. It also ensures that its information technology infrastructure conforms to standards to better manage, secure and protect data, while driving operational excellence.

“A detailed risk assessment was undertaken and the corporation’s framework was evaluated for the efficiency of its technical infrastructure. Its external services were also tested to ensure confidentiality, integrity, secure exchange of data and availability of critical information. The corporation’s business continuity framework ensures it has control over risks of exposure to internal and external threats.”

Hussain Al Atrakchi, regional managing director for the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan, said: “Receiving this recertification across its operations and departments is a major achievement for the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation and reflects its drive as a government entity for maintaining world-class operations across its business functions.”

Mohammad Al Hammadi, Enec CEO, said: “These re-certifications highlight our absolute commitment to the highest international standards for safety, quality and risk management. Enec is working to deliver safe, clean and efficient nuclear energy that will be vital in supporting the UAE’s social and economic growth. Our robust internal processes are vital in ensuring we remain on-track to deliver nuclear energy to the UAE grid in 2017.”

Intertek has a network of more than 1,000 laboratories and offices and over 36,000 people in more than 100 countries. It supports companies’ success in the global marketplace by helping customers meet end users’ expectations for safety, sustainability, performance, integrity and desirability in virtually any market worldwide.

OLA FILED

Earlier, Enec announced it had filed the operating licence application (OLA) for Barakah Units 1 & 2 with the UAE Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR). The move followed a five-year process in which Enec and the Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kepco), the prime contractor of Enec’s rogramme, documented the safety of the planned operations and maintenance of the Barakah plant and its adherence to the highest standards of safety, quality and security.

“This is a very important stage in the development of the UAE peaceful nuclear energy programme,” commented Al Hammadi. “The successful and on-time submission of this OLA is a crucial milestone in our journey to becoming fully operational in 2017, and delivering on our mission to connect safe, clean and reliable nuclear energy to fuel the country’s continued growth.”

Enec’s submission, on behalf of its operating entity, seeks a FANR licence to safely operate and maintain the UAE’s first two nuclear energy plants, which are currently under construction at Barakah, in the Western Region of Abu Dhabi.