Eckert & Ziegler: Federal German Office for Radiation recommends retrieval of the radioactive waste from the Asse mine

Berlin, 15.01.2010. The German Federal Office for Radiation today has made an official recommendation to salvage all of the radioactive waste from the storage area in the Asse mine that is close to collapse. Afterwards, the 126,000 barrels-worth of low- to medium-grade waste shall be finally stored in the Konrad pit, a disused iron ore mine in Salzgitter. The management of Eckert & Ziegler AG (ISIN DE0005659700) sees in its appraisal the recommendation from the Federal Office as confirmation that there will be considerable demand over the next few years for services dealing with processing and finalising the storage of low-level radioactive waste in Lower Saxony. The management is confident that its newly-formed Kompetenzzentrum für sichere Entsorgung GmbH (KSE) is, due to its expertise, its large storage area and capacity, extremely well positioned to contribute in the decommissioning of the Asse site and the safe disposal of these hazardous substances.

The new business area of Environmental Services, to which KSE is attributed, has only existed since the start of the year as a own segment within the company. It has its roots in the reprocessing of medical and industrial radiation sources for cancer treatment and metrology. Eckert & Ziegler is one of the largest global manufacturers of such components and has operated for years in the retrieval and safe disposal of radioactive substances. Several containers that were reconditioned by processes developed by Eckert & Ziegler have already been recognised by the German Federal Office for Radiation as fault-free storage in accordance with the final storage conditions at Konrad. Neither the company nor any of its affiliates or associates were involved in the final storage of radioactive waste in the Asse during the 1970s.

The Board of Directors