Atomex is the largest communication venue for suppliers to maintain an open dialog with nuclear industry customers, demonstrate their innovative products and establish business contacts. By tradition, the forum hosts an international conference and an exhibition of nuclear industry suppliers and service providers.
On the first day of the forum, Rosatom CEO Sergei Kirienko took the floor at the plenary session to spoke about procurement activities in 2015 and plans for 2016.
Transparent system
Kirienko began with statistics, “The number of suppliers regularly bidding in our tenders has grown from 1,000 to 24,000. The number of bidders for the largest tenders is growing, too. “In the beginning, we had one or two bidders for a large tender. Last year we had four or five while this year the average number is seven,” stressed Kirienko. According to him, the growing number of bidders proves that Rosatom has created attractive conditions for potential suppliers.
He added that the contract portfolio to be tendered would only expand each year. This year Rosatom plans to tender out supply contracts for 838 billion rubles, with over 500 billion rubles in products and services to be procured by the year end. Next year the state-run corporation plans to put out tenders for a total amount of 944 billion rubles. Overseas projects will account for 469 million rubles out of this amount.
Rosatom looks for reliable and responsible contractors among industrial producers, large construction companies, small and medium-sized businesses. Much work has been done to harmonize procurement rules, organize on-line bidding processes and introduce a corporate training system. “We invested much effort to make our procurement system clear and transparent for every supplier,” stressed Sergei Kirienko. Industry experts point at Rosatom as an example of successful SME engagement – small and medium businesses increase their share in products and services procured by Rosatom.
Business program
As part of the Forum’s business program, Rosatom organized a round-table discussion on the construction of Russian-designed nuclear stations abroad and opportunities for international suppliers. Konstantin Ilyinsky from Atomproekt, Rosatom’s project design company, spoke about preparations for the construction of Hanhikivi nuclear station in Finland. At present, the site survey is almost completed, and Atomproekt experts take part in quality control and acceptance of the survey results. By the end of the year, Atomproekt will transfer to the customer most engineering documents for architectural design, technology solutions, site layout, water supply, sewerage and power supply systems. Earlier this year Atomproekt sent the first package of project documents for the customer to start the licensing process for the Russian-designed nuclear power plant with the Finnish regulator STUK.
Sharing expertise
Atomproekt and French engineering group Schneider Electric signed a cooperation agreement at Atomex. The agreement provides for the exchange of experience in advanced engineering solutions to be used in civil nuclear projects.
Commenting on the new agreement, CEO of Atomproekt Sergei Onufrienko stressed that the company was actively looking for new solutions on the market to apply them in its high-tech projects. Atomproekt confirmed its plans to design NPP projects around an ‘unchangeable core’ – a standard set of nuclear island layouts and technologies to ensure the highest performance and safety of the nuclear power plant and achieve the maximum standardization of equipment used.
“Schneider Electric develops and produces components used in our project systems,” noted Onufrienko. “We do not buy any equipment directly from Schneider Electric although we use their products. The thing is that many manufacturers, including Russian companies, make equipment developed by Schneider Electric. It is very important for us that the company has the world’s most innovative technologies and monitors the best developments in this field. Many systems at the Leningrad NPP are built with Schneider Electric components.” According to him, top equipment by Schneider Electric gives a competitive advantage and complies with all Russian standards.
Jean-Louis Stasi, Schneider Electric President in Russia and the CIS, noted that the two companies celebrated 25 years of cooperation. “Schneider Electric is a global company, but today it is also a Russian company. We have invested one billion US dollars in production facilities in Russia. There are seven factories and 12,000 employees. In June, we signed a very important cooperation agreement with Rosatom. The new partnership with Atomproekt is another ambitious step ahead,” he said.
This year’s Forum attracted 191 companies, which presented over 100 exhibitions. In particular, VNIIAES (Russian Research Institute for NPP Operations) demonstrated digital NPP simulators and process control systems. A part of its stand was occupied by products developed jointly with Rolls-Royce – components for the Spinline reactor protection system. VNIIAES also demonstrated new upper-level software based on the Portal Software and external function block logic. In their turn, Atomproekt engineers presented pilot projects for large-capacity VVER-based nuclear stations.
On the third day of the Forum, top managers of Rosatom Group companies held over eighty B2B meetings with potential suppliers at their exhibition stands.
