Improving the system of procurement was one of the major forum’s topics. During the opening ceremony Roman Zimonas, Rosatom’s Director for Procurement Methodology and Organization spoke about the year’s results in the sphere. In 2013 the State Corporation made its purchases for the sum of RUB 536 billion, 99% of it was made via e-commerce sites. The year’s tendency is reducing purchasing from only seller along with requirement strengthening to subcontractors. Zimonas also mentioned plans concerning increase of purchasing from small and medium business (up to 10% by 2014 and up to 20% by 2016).
In the opening day there were also round table sessions and sectional meetings held, where the members spoke about organizing cooperation between engineering companies and suppliers and equipment producing plants on the design and construction stage of serial projects. They also touched upon topics like prolonging operating life of NPPs and their modernization; information technologies for atomic energy; conditions for international organizations’ entering NPP construction market; state procurement and new law in contract system, engineering surveys, locating, designing and construction of nuclear power objects; purchasing equipment for atomic and power engineering industry.
Open system
The main event of the second day of the forum was plenary session, where spoke Mikhail Abyzov, the RF Minister for Open Government Affairs and Rosatom General Director, Sergey Kiriyenko. Among all, Mr. Kiriyenko noted that the State Corporation managed to multiply the number of open purchases by 25. “We started from 1000 suppliers, now there are more than 15 000 of them and more than 30 000 purchasing procedures. Due to our cooperation with the RF government, Federal Antimonopoly Service and their support we reached our target to create open system of procurement and improve legal basis”, – he emphasized.
The RF Minister for Open Government Affairs is sure that it is Rosatom’s point today to hold the bar high for effective work with suppliers. “The work with suppliers established by Rosatom is the most efficient. For us, for government, the mechanisms offered by Rosatom are the basis we’ll use to work out regulations for other public ownership companies”, – said Abyzov at the ATOMEX-2013 forum. He also noticed that Rosatom’s expansion to international market opens wide opportunities for various industries in Russian economy, working for atomists: “Russian suppliers got a unique opportunity to promote their advanced technologies and innovations at the international market. The RF government sees the expansion as a good opportunity for many allied industries working within Russia and for atomic industry”.
“The system we created has had a very serious effect. More than RUB 20,5 billion have been saved only on competitive procedures this year. While 5 years period savings are already more than RUB 100 billion”, – said Sergey Kiriyenko, inviting suppliers to further improve the process.
Globalization and peers
Intensive growth of global business will result in changes in working with suppliers as well – this was another important issue of ATOMEX. This year Rosatom has delivered the Bushehr NPP in Iran to commercial service. This autumn the physical launch of the Kudankulam NPP in India was done. Soon the launch of the BN-800 unit of the Beloyarsk NPP will take place. Next year as many as two objects will be launched in Russia: unit 1 of the Novovoronezh NPP-2 and unit 3 of the Rostov NPP. “We are achieving our goal – serial construction, serial launches of NPPs” – Mr. Kiriyenko emphasized. According to him, these coming years Rosatom is planning to build more stations abroad than within the country. The Corporation’s task is to launch in Russia at least one unit annually, while the prospective plan for abroad is no less than two units every year. Turkey, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Finland and Jordan – this is not a full list of the countries where Rosatom is building plants or is about to begin. The scope of contracts made exceeds $ 70 billion. Not regarding Fukushima, the State Corporation is able to attract clients due to its complex offers and costs. However the rivalry is becoming tougher, the biggest threat, according to the head of Rosatom, is coming from China and South Korea. These countries have learnt how to construct low-priced NPPs and are willing to break through to the world market of NPP construction.
Rosatom sees its opportunity to raise competitiveness with the help of investments to new equipment and rationalization of production. “Thus we are ready to make long orders, increase the terms of contracts so that producers have a chance to invest in improvements”, – said Kiriyenko. “The company keeps introducing new equipment, training specialists. Thus saving time for us”, – said Mr. Kiriyenko, promising to keep supporting this.
NPP ASAP
The representatives of “Atomenergoproyekt” – NPP designer of Rosatom – at the forum told about their plans to reduce the term of NPP building due to introduction of project-oriented control method (POC). As said Sergey Batukhtin, Director for Objects Construction, the POC methods are being introduced currently at the Novovoronezh NPP-2 site in Voronezh region.
POC is a control method that sees the company’s activity as a stock of projects with each global project also represented by a stock of projects. As they say in “Atomenergoproyekt”, the introduction of this method helps to reduce the construction phase by 13-15%, potentially reduces investment cycle on the whole by 7-9%; increases work potential per man up to 20%. This approach also allows better control of construction.
B2B
This year the forum for the first time had meetings in the b2b format meant for suppliers and representatives of atomic industry. The opportunity raised big interest. There were 36 individual meetings organized for suppliers and representatives of Rosenergoatom concern (Russian NPP operator), TVEL fuel company, Atomenergomash (machine-building division of Rosatom), NIAEP-ASE engineering company, Atomenergoproyekt (general designer and contractor of NPPs, Atomenergoremont (major specialized enterprise for NPP repair and maintenance) and other nuclear industry enterprises.
Many meetings resulted with signing important cooperation agreements. Thus, Czech Sigma Group a.s will supply equipment for the Leningrad NPP-2: the company signed a contract for EUR 1,8 million with Atomenergomash. The supply includes 4 intermediate circuit unit pumps for cooling system and 4 line-operated unit pumps with auxiliary equipment.
Rosatom is one of Sigma’s main partners. “Russia’s demands for safety and efficiency of equipment stimulate our constructors and designers to make our pumps more effective and safe. Our partnership with Rosatom is the best reference for our company and other Czech enterprises not only at Russian market, but at those of other countries. The experience of producing pump equipment for VVER-1200 reactors for the Leningrad NPP-2 will do good to our company in case we win the tender for finishing the Temelin NPP, Czech-Russian consortium MIR 1200, offering the same type of reactor”, – said Miroslav Vesely, Sigma Group a.s. Marketing Director.
There also were the following presentational sessions organized for the members: “equipment for NPP and atomic industry. Instruments and automatics” and “NPP design and construction. Building structures and materials”, with about 200 people having taken part in them. 76 atomic industry suppliers and clients companies had their expositions at the Forum; 105 representatives of Russian and foreign companies made their presentations.
The participants found the forum very productive. “It’s been a while since we wanted to meet our major client Atommash, to who we supply liquid oxygen, – said Mikhail Malyshev, regional sales manager of Praxair Rus (supplier of all types of gas within Russia and abroad). – ATOMEX gave us such an opportunity. Speaking to specialists made us understand what we have to improve, how we can apply modern equipment connected with gas supply for welding.”
At the forum we’ve found new contacts and learnt more about Rosatom’s procurement activities, – said Mikhail Perebeynos, Deputy General Director of the Etalon plant, producing electronics. – Our enterprise is not big, only 200 people. In order to become a full-scale supplier of atomic industry one has to prepare each time a huge documentation package. Preparation takes time, strength, efforts and resources, but at the end one not always manages to supply the equipment due to the fierce competition. While the documents are complicated, demand time and experience. However the procurement system is getting simpler with time”.
