Ukraine’s Minister of Energy and Coal Industry Igor Nasal has said US-based company Westinghouse (part of Toshiba) is ready to begin construction of nuclear fuel plant in Ukraine to produce fuel to replace that currently supplied by Russia.
Ukraine’s Minister of Energy and Coal Industry Igor Nasal has said US-based company Westinghouse (part of Toshiba) is ready to begin construction of nuclear fuel plant in Ukraine to produce fuel to replace that currently supplied by Russia.
As part of a policy to diversify the sources of supply of nuclear fuel Ukraine plans in 2016 to source more than a third of the fuel for its NPPs from Westinghouse. In 2015 most fuel was supplied by Russia.
Ukrainian nuclear utility Energoatom said it plans to load TVS-WR Westinghouse fuel in six nuclear units – two at the South-Ukraine NPP and four at the Zaporozhye NPP, according to a report in Ukrainian weekly Nedeli Ukraina. In mid-June TVS-WR was loaded into unit 5 at Zaporozhye NPP. The fuel was delivered to the site in February. Earlier Westinghouse fuel was loaded into two units of the South-Ukraine NPP.
The Director of Russia’s Foreign Ministry Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, Mikhail Ulyanov, said Moscow regrets Kiev’s decision to replace Russian nuclear fuel, which transforms Ukraine into a testing ground for experimental US fuel assemblies. He said the Ukrainian authorities had based their decision not on technical and economic considerations, but on political considerations " that clearly run counter to the interests of Ukraine and its people" he told RIA Novosti.