OREANDA-NEWS. Late May 2007 a contract was effected concerning supplies of nuclear fuel pellets to the United Kingdom. The contract was signed in frames of cooperation between a TVEL’s company Mashinostroitelny Zavod (MSZ) and AREVA NP. The pellets are to be delivered in late 2007 - early 2008 to AREVA NP’s Lingen plant in Germany, which will fabricate fuel assemblies. The fuel end user is the UK’s leading utility British Energy, reported the press-centre of  TVEL.

The Sizewell B nuclear reactor - the fuel recipient - is the only British pressurized water reactor (PWR). For MSZ is the first in its history fuel supply for a British nuclear power plant.

MSZ and AREVA NP (former Siemens/KWU) started their joint activities in 1994 when fabrication processes for AREVA NP-designed PWR fuel for were qualified. Later on, the plant designed and deployed an automated line for fabricating western design fuel assemblies. Initially, the fuel was supplied to Germany, when the supply geography expanded to Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

Over 1,000 western design fuel assemblies have already been fabricated in frames of this project. There have not been recorded a single case of leaking fuel due to the producer’s fault over the entire period of the MSZ-fabricated fuel operation at western plants. By present, AREVA NP and MSZ have signed contracts for fabrication of nuclear fuel for several western nuclear power plants; the contract is to be in effect until 2020.

MSZ is one of the largest, multi-field enterprises of the TVEL Corporation. In frames of the joint project with AREVA NP it supplies about 100 tons of fuel per year. Presently, this fuel is used in 10 nuclear power reactors in Western Europe.