The containment vessel bottom head has been hoisted into place for unit 1 of the Lianjiang nuclear power plant in China's Guangdong province, State Power Investment Corporation announced.

The loading of fuel into the core of unit 4 of the Barakah nuclear power plant in the UAE has been completed, operator Nawah Energy Company has announced.

Ukraine's Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko, Energoatom President Petro Kotin and Westinghouse CEO Patrick Fragman have signed an agreement on the purchase of equipment for what is to become Khmelnitsky nuclear power plant unit 5.

The controlled self-sustaining fission chain reaction began at Kakrapar unit 4 in the early hours of 17 December, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd has announced. The Indian government has also confirmed it has completed the land purchase for the construction of two 700 MWe reactors at Chutka.

Construction of the first EPR unit at the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant in Somerset, UK, has reached a major milestone with the installation of the reactor building dome.

The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board has given its permission for the first approach to criticality of unit 4 at the Kakrapar nuclear power plant. The unit is the second of two Indian-designed 700 MWe pressurised heavy water reactors being built at the site in Gujarat.  

Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power has been contracted to conduct a feasibility study into the construction of two Korean-supplied reactors at the Borssele nuclear power plant site in the Netherlands. The contract comes as the South Korean and Dutch governments sign a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on nuclear energy.

Turkey's Nuclear Regulatory Agency has issued permission to the Akkuyu nuclear power plant to commission the first power unit.

As the second unit at the Koeberg nuclear power plant goes offline for an extended maintenance outage, South Africa's Department of Mineral Resources and Energy has confirmed it will go ahead with the procurement of 2500 MWe of new nuclear capacity with plans to issue requests for proposals by March 2024.

The UK company says it is on track to regain ASME status as a supplier of heavy forgings and castings to the civil nuclear market, to position it for the proposed large-scale expansion of nuclear capacity in the country.

Poland's Ministry of Climate and Environment has issued decisions-in-principle for the construction of power plants based on GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy's BWRX-300 small modular reactor at six locations. A total of 24 BWRX-300 reactors are planned at the sites.

Ontario Power Generation subsidiary Laurentis Energy Partners is joining forces with Tractebel and Hatch to develop a one-stop shop to support industrial small modular reactor clients worldwide.