WISCASSET – Three months after terminating a contract, Maine Yankee has signed a new agreement with the company that provides the dry cask storage system for the spent fuel assemblies.

The new arrangement gives Maine Yankee more authority to manage the transfer of fuel assemblies while NAC International provides the storage system and proprietary equipment and knowledge, the companies said.

News of the agreement was revealed by the companies at the Community Advisory Panel meeting Wednesday night.

Back in January, when the previous contract was terminated, Maine Yankee was frustrated by the pace of the transfer of fuel assembles necessary for the decommissioning of the shuttered nuclear power plant.

NAC was supposed to have completed the job in October but only 15 out of 60 canisters were in place.

Altogether, 1,434 fuel rods are being moved from a pool of water into airtight canisters where they will be stored on site for at least 20 years until a federal nuclear waste repository is built.

The process is still behind schedule, “but we are picking up the momentum and are confident we will have the canisters done on time,” Ray Burke, vice president of decommissioning, told the meeting.

Company officials hope to have the casks completed and the fuel assemblies transferred by next spring, said Maine Yankee spokesman Eric Howes.