Westinghouse to provide Ukraine with technology of nuclear fuel production

Published Jan. 20, 2019 at 5:07 pm

Aziz Dag, the Westinghouse Electric Company Vice President and Managing Director, Northern Europe (L), Yuriy Nedashkovsky (C), Ukrainian State nuclear generation company President and Volodymyr Lisnichenko (R), Yuzhnoukrainska Nuclear Power Plant director, take part in a command conference on issues of implementation of nuclear fuel of American Westighouse company on Yuzhnoukrainska Nuclear Power Plant on June 19, 2018.

Photo by AFP

Ukraine has received permission from U.S.-based Westinghouse to use nuclear fuel technology in the construction of a plant, Ukraine’s Minister of Energy and Coal Industry Ihor Nasalyk has said in the Verkhovna Rada.

According to him, today, only Westinghouse and Russia’s TVEL own the technology for production of fuel for VVER-type reactors with which Ukrainian nuclear power plants are equipped.

He also added that the plant could be built in three years.

“That is, only uranium enrichment will be carried out outside Ukraine, as we cannot do this because we have lost the status of a nuclear state,” the minister said.

Before the annexation of Crimea by Russia, Ukraine planned to build a plant for nuclear fuel production based on the technology of the Russian fuel company TVEL in Kirovohrad region. PrJSC Nuclear Fuel Plant was created, in which the Ukrainian state concern Nuclear Fuel owns 50 percent plus one share, while TVEL holds a 50 percent minus one share stake.