6 Nov (NucNet): Russia’s Rusatom Service has signed an agreement with Ukraine’s state-owned nuclear plant operator Energoatom for the maintenance and servicing of Russian VVER nuclear power plants.
Rusatom Service, which was established by Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom in 2011 for the servicing of VVER plants, said the agreement is intended to “facilitate proposals” put forward by Ukrainian prime minister Nikolai Azarov to increase Ukrainian-Russian cooperation in nuclear energy.
The agreement covers the maintenance and servicing not only of VVER plants, but also other energy facilities, both in Ukraine and overseas.
It also allows for cooperation between the two enterprises in engineering and technical support for VVER plants. It covers their maintenance, systems and equipment repair, modernisation, life extension and decommissioning.
Rusatom Service said in a statement that the maintenance and servicing market for Russian reactors abroad is more than 1.5 billion euro (EUR) (1.9 billion US dollars), with a further increase in 2020 of EUR 2.5 billion.
The company plans to expand its operations by entering the market for the servicing and maintenance of western design reactors, the statement said.
Ukraine has 15 VVER reactor units in commercial operation at four nuclear plants. VVER units also operate in Armenia, Bulgaria, Hungary, China, Slovakia, Finland and the Czech Republic. Russia is planning to build VVER-1200 units in Belarus and Turkey, Rusatom Service said.
Last month Russia and Ukraine began construction of a 462-million-dollar (356 million euro) fuel fabrication plant that is intended to meet all Ukraine’s needs for nuclear fuel.
The plant will be co-owned by Ukraine’s Nuclear Fuel state concern and the Russian nuclear fuel company JSC TVEL, a Rosatom subsidiary
