Cooperation. Rosatom and Vietnam have signed an inter-agency roadmap for the development of nuclear technologies through 2030. This document covers the construction of a nuclear science and technology center, fuel supply for the research reactor in Da Lat, workforce training for Vietnam’s nuclear industry, and the country’s participation in the International Research Consortium that will operate a sodium-cooled research reactor, MBIR. Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev emphasized that joint work in science and research had been a cornerstone of cooperation between the Russian nuclear corporation and Vietnam for many decades. “Soviet engineers restarted the U.S.-built research reactor in the 1980s, and now Vietnamese scientists have ordered a new research reactor from us. […] Moreover, this visit marks the transition to a new stage of cooperation, which is represented by the project to build a large nuclear power plant,” said Alexey Likhachev, commenting on the signed agreement.

Fusion. The world’s largest and most powerful pulsed magnetic system has been assembled as part of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) construction project. It comprises toroidal and poloidal field coils, correction coils, and a central solenoid. Russian companies, including those from Rosatom’s group, played an active role in this work. “We manufactured 120 tonnes of niobium-titanium superconductors, and more than 17 kilometers of niobium-tin superconducting strands,” said Anatoly Krasilnikov, Director of Moscow’s ITER Project Center. Additionally, Russia produced one of six poloidal field coils (PF1) and shipped it to the future reactor’s construction site. The ITER is being built through international collaboration in Provence (France), near Marseille. Under its commitments to the ITER project, Russia is to develop, manufacture, and supply 25 systems for the future facility.

Construction sites. Installation of an overhead crane has begun at the construction site of the BREST-OD-300 fast reactor in Seversk, Russia. The crane will be used to move large-sized equipment during the construction and maintenance of the reactor. The installation process is expected to take about six months. BREST-OD-300 is a lead-cooled fast-neutron reactor being built as part of the Proryv (Russian for ‘breakthrough’) project, aiming to make the closed nuclear fuel cycle a commercially feasible alternative. In addition to the innovative reactor, the experimental power production facility (abbreviated ODEK in Russian) will comprise modules for the fabrication/refabrication of mixed uranium-plutonium nitride (MUPN) fuel and reprocessing of irradiated nuclear fuel.