RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2012

RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS [Abstract]

RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS

10. RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS

Payables to Thermo and other affiliates relate to normal purchase transactions and were $0.2 million and $0.4 million at September 30, 2012 and December 31, 2011, respectively.

Transactions with Thermo

Thermo incurs certain expenses on behalf of the Company. The table below summarizes the total expense for the periods indicated below (in thousands):

	Three Months Ended September 30,				Nine Months Ended September 30,
	2012		2011		2012		2011
General and administrative expense	$	30	$	10	$	230	$	119
Non-cash expenses		132		102		396		186
Total	$	162	$	112	$	626	$	305

General and administrative expenses are related to expenses incurred by Thermo on the Company's behalf which are charged to the Company. Non-cash expenses are related to services provided by executive officers of Thermo (who are also directors of the Company) who receive no cash compensation from the Company which are accounted for as a contribution to capital. The Thermo expense charges are based on actual amounts (with no mark-up) incurred or upon allocated employee time.

Since June 2009, Thermo and its affiliates have also deposited $60.0 million into a contingent equity account to fulfill a condition precedent for the initial borrowing under the Facility Agreement, purchased $20.0 million of the Company's 5.0% Notes, purchased $11.4 million of the Company's 8.00% Notes, provided a $2.3 million short-term loan to the Company (which was subsequently converted into nonvoting common stock), and loaned $37.5 million to the Company to fund the debt service reserve account required by the Facility Agreement.