Work on the world's first floating nuclear heating plant is to be taken up a notch in 2007, with an OMZ subsidiary having secured a contact to supply equipment for two nuclear reactors for the plant.

The heating plant, technical design approval for which was granted in 2002, is to be moored in the White Sea, near the port of Severodvinsk, in Russia’s Arkhangelsk region.

The contracts for KLT-40S nuclear reactors for the floating plant have been signed between OMZ unit Izhorskiye Zavody, Afrikantov Special Machine Building Design Bureau, Nizhny Novgorod, and Baltyisky Zavod OJSC. The value of the contracts exceeds RUR500 million.

According to the contract terms, in 2007 to 2008, Izhorskiye Zavody will ship approximately 360 tons of equipment for the plant.

To date, energy equipment produced by Izhorskiye Zavody operates in 47 power units of Russian and CIS nuclear power plants, as well as at nuclear plants in Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Finland.

The company’s other contract wins have, in recent years, seen it produce modernized reactor facilities for the Busher Nuclear Power Plant in Iran, the Tyan Van Nuclear Power Plant in China, and the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in India, on the basis of intergovernmental agreements.