23 Sep (NucNet): Ukraine’s supreme legislative body, the Verkhovna Rada, has approved a bill renouncing an earlier intergovernmental agreement with Russia on the construction of two new reactor units at the Khmelnitski nuclear power station near the city of Neteshin, western Ukraine.
The motion was voted into force with the support of 234 deputies in the 450-seat parliament on 16 September.
The agreement was terminated on the grounds of Russia’s “non-fulfilment of the liabilities envisioned by it”, the official position of the legislature said.
The intergovernmental agreement on the construction of Khmelnitski-3 and -4 was signed in June 2010 by the administration of then-president Viktor Yanukovich and was subsequently ratified by the Ukrainian parliament in 2011. The document stipulated that the Russian side would secure the financing necessary to develop, construct, and put into operation the two reactor units, the parliament official communique says.
In February 2011, Atomstroyexport, a subsidiary of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, signed a contract with Ukraine’s nuclear operator Energoatom for the development of the technical design for Khmelnitski-3 and -4. Both units are of the VVER-1000/392 design. Construction was expected to be completed by the end of 2016.
According to the Russian news agency Interfax, in 2011 Energoatom expressed its dissatisfaction with the credit offer made by the Russian financial group Sberbank. The Ukrainian state-owned company was expecting a governmental rather than a commercial guarantee as it was initially agreed upon between both parties to the deal, Interfax said.
In July 2015 the Ukrainian cabinet announced its decision to renounce the cooperation agreement and consequently introduced a bill to the parliament for ratification in early August 2015.
Construction of Khmelnitski-3 began in September 1985 and construction of Khmelnitski-4 in June 1986.Work on the two units stopped in 1990 when they were 75 percent and 28 percent complete respectively. The International Atomic Energy Agency lists both units as under construction.
Ukraine generates almost half its electricity from its 15 commercially operational nuclear reactors, all Russian-designed pressurised water reactors, including two existing VVER-1000/320 units at Khmelnitski.
