Vítkovice Heavy Machinery and TSP Engineering have signed an agreement to cooperate in the decommissioning of British nuclear power plants and the supply of components for nuclear-powered submarines. Czech engineering company VHM said yesterday the contract is worth about CZK3.5 billion ($158 million) over the next five years.

Companies are being invited to bid for a contract to demolish the Dounreay Materials Test Reactor in Scotland. A contract notice will appear in the Official Journal of the European Union for the project estimated to be worth around £7 million ($9 million) over three years. A contractor is expected to be appointed in the first half of 2018.

Toshiba Corp, which reported its long-awaited earnings results today, says it has "dedicated itself" to eliminating risk related to the overseas nuclear power business, swiftly recovering and strengthening its financial base and strengthening its organisational management. The industrial and electronics conglomerate posted a net loss of ¥‎965.7 billion ($8.8 billion) for the financial year ended 31 March, an improvement of ¥‎30 billion from a revised outlook provided in June, but still more than double the loss of the previous year.

EDF recorded a 3.7% year-on-year fall in net income and a 2.6% dip in sales in the first half of this year - to €2 billion and €35.7 billion - with its nuclear power generation impacted by unplanned outages. The French state-owned group said the results were in line with expectations, despite the launch earlier this year of a €4 billion capital increase.

Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power confirmed today it is in talks about "cooperation" with Horizon Nuclear Power, which is planning to build two large reactors at Wylfa Newydd in Wales.

Nuclear power's share of the UK's electricity generation mix was stable at 21% last year, according to statistics released by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy yesterday. Nuclear generation rose 2% from 70 terawatt hours to 72 TWh in 2016 as nuclear plants had fewer planned and unplanned outages than in 2015.

Toshiba Corp is now the sole owner of NuGeneration (NuGen) after completing the acquisition of French utility Engie's 40% share in the UK nuclear power plant developer yesterday. The Japanese electronics conglomerate received notice from Engie on 4 April that it had exercised its right to require Toshiba to purchase all shares held by Engie in NuGen.

The UK's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority received more than GBP1.0 billion ($1.3 billion) of commercial income in the 2016/2017 financial year, which it says reduced the "net impact on the public purse" to GBP2.2 billion. According to its annual report and accounts, published yesterday, the exact figure was GBP1.025 billion, which was down from GBP1.094 billion in 2015/2016. Around 85% of its income, GBP612 million, came from the reprocessing and management of used fuel and waste.

The UK needs to build 14.5 GWe of new nuclear capacity by 2035 or it will fail to meet the Two Degrees scenario, National Grid says in the annual update of its Future Energy Scenarios it published yesterday. The report also suggests that national electricity demand could peak at 85 GWe by 2050, compared with around 60 GWe today. National Grid is the private company which runs Britain's high-voltage electricity network.

The UK government's Department for Exiting the European Union has today published a position paper on nuclear materials and safeguards issues, which the head of the country's Nuclear Industry Association says "demonstrates the complexity" of replicating arrangements with the European Atomic Energy Community.

The British government and media are discussing with renewed concern the prospect of the UK's departure from the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). Current plans would see the UK leave both the European Union and Euratom by April 2019.

The UK's Office for Nuclear Regulation has presented four key targets in its corporate plan for 2017/2018 published yesterday. It has also published its annual report and accounts for 2016/2017, in which its chairman describes the "significant change" the organisation has been through, both at board and management level, "to ensure we remain fit for the future".