TVEL and AllWeld cooperation agreement on decommissioning and waste management

Friday, 8 November 2024

The agreement was signed at African Energy Week 2024 in Cape Town by Eduard Nikitin, director for decommissioning of nuclear facilities and radioactive waste management at TVEL, which is part of Rosatom, and Mervyn Fisher, director general of AllWeld Nuclear and Industrial.

The proposed cooperation areas include the development of infrastructure for radioactive waste management - storage and disposal - as well as the design and creation of equipment needed in this area in South Africa.

Nikitin said: "Rosatom has enormous experience and expertise in the field of decommissioning nuclear facilities and radioactive waste management, including ... proprietary technologies and a broad scientific research programme. This experience is certainly in demand in all countries of the world that have nuclear energy, uranium mining industry or experience in operating research reactors. The signing of the memorandum with South African partners opens up new opportunities for the implementation of joint projects both in South Africa and beyond."

Allweld describes itself as "one of the oldest established, and longest-running engineering solutions companies in South Africa" serving nuclear and other energy industries in the country since 1962.

South Africa has two nuclear reactors at the Koeberg nuclear power plant generating about 5% of its electricity - the first reactor began operating in 1984 - and the country is planning to launch a bidding process for 2.5 GWe of new nuclear capacity. The 2008 National Radioactive Waste Disposal Institute Act led to the establishment in 2014 of the National Radioactive Waste Disposal Institute, which is responsible for radioactive waste disposal in South Africa. There is a national repository for low and intermediate-level waste at Vaalputs in the Northern Cape province and used fuel is stored at Koeberg.