Russia's Atomstroyexport pulls out of Ukraine
Atomstroyexport, part of the ASE-NIAEP-AEP engineering subsidiary of Russia's Rosatom, has closed down its office in Ukraine. The closure was announced yesterday in the Ukrainian parliamentary newspaper Golos Ukraini.
Atomstroyexport's board of directors decided on the "voluntary liquidation" of the company's representative office in Ukraine on 1 June. The office was registered in October 2004, in Slavutych.
Atomstroyexport is Russia's general contractor for the construction of nuclear power plants in other countries. It won a tender to build the third and fourth units of the Khmelnitski nuclear power plant in Ukraine, where the government later cancelled the agreement.
Construction of the new Khmelnitski units was stopped in 1990 when they were, respectively, 75% and 28% complete. The government announced in September 2008 that construction of the units would resume in 2010 for completion in 2016 and 2017, these completion dates being reaffirmed in the mid-2011 energy policy update.
Energoatom and Atomstroyexport signed a contract agreement in February 2011 for the completion of the units as AES-92 plants with V-392B reactors similar to those already on the site. That contract followed an intergovernmental agreement signed in June 2010. Then, in October that year, Russia's Sberbank said it was willing to lend Energoatom $1 billion, with Ukraine meeting 15% of the cost of the project.
But Energoatom said in May 2011 it was not satisfied with the interest rate of the proposed loan and in August 2014, Energoatom President Yuri Nedashkovskiy said Ukraine would not cooperate with Russia on construction of Khmelnitski 3 and 4. Nedashkovskiy also said Energoatom would prepare a plan for the units, including a strategy to export the electricity they generate to Europe.
At a televised Cabinet meeting on 22 October 2014 Ukrainian Prime Minister Areseniy Yatsenyuk said the project will be implemented by Czech engineering company Škoda JS. Yatsenyuk had told Energoatom management to speed up construction of new nuclear reactors and to enlist the help of "European partners" rather than Russia. A few days later, Energoatom and Škoda JS signed a memorandum of cooperation.
Researched and written
by World Nuclear News
