“The first criticality program is under way at Beloyarsk plant, it’s BN-800. We have started loading the fuel. Then, there is Rostov-3. It goes even ahead of schedule. Today, we can confidently speak of not only the first criticality, but of the first power in 2014. The plan is that we are to have the first criticality in October and the first power in December. Also, we want to start the first criticality program at Novovoronezh in December, on the eve of the New Year,” the head of ROSATOM said. Besides, the second reactor at Kudankulam plant is getting ready for the first criticality in India. “So it happens that construction of three reactors in this country and one reactor abroad will be completed, a total of four reactors, Kirienko summed up. “Like in the soviet time.”
It has to be pointed out that over the recent several years ROSATOM has moved the nuclear build focus to the foreign market. In many respects this is due to updated outlook of the electricity consumption growth in Russia, i.e. the dynamics is not as high as expected. It means that the demand in new capacities will not be as high. “But since we have made the entire machine engineering complex to operate at full capacity, now we are building up our foreign orders portfolio,” Sergey Kirienko explained.
The contract portfolio is gaining weight at an impressive pace. Two years ago the government set a target for ROSATOM of US$ 50 billion for 10 years. This year, ROSATOM strives for already US$ 98 billion.
At the meeting a number of agreements that have been reached recently were mentioned. So just late May a new agreement with Kazakhstan (see page 2 for details). In mid April in India the arrangements on building the second phase of Kudankulam NPP were formalized. The Hanhikivi-1 project in Finland is developing. In Hungary the stage of commercial negotiations on a new Paks reactor is under way. “What is important is that this work goes jointly with the European Union, the European Commission, Sergey Kirienko emphasized. “It is important of principle that the project is absolutely open and meets all European regulations and standards. Transparency is of special importance in nuclear power.”
The schedule also includes projects in Bangladesh and Vietnam. The negotiations with Iran on expansion of Bushehr NPP continue. The Belarus plant construction is ahead of schedule. “Now, we have settled all disputable issues on terms and conditions for the Russian organizations, Sergey Kirienko described the situation. “We have agreed that they won’t lose anything and will be paid as if they were operating in Russian facilities with the Russian wage level.”
Dmitry Medvedev highly appraised the ROSATOM’s ambitions. “It’s good to see such a huge order portfolio. I hope this will help also our nuclear power, will create a basis for ROSATOM development and, of course, for solving large-scale economic tasks,” the Head of the Government said.
