OREANDA-NEWS. October 1, 2007. “Russian nuclear fuel is a high quality product and oftentimes it is better than its western analogues. We supply nuclear fuel to Ukraine and Eastern Europe but to Western Europe we should go with their type of fuel. We want to establish direct contacts with western power companies with no intermediaries involved,” the head of Rosatom Sergey Kiriyenko said during the recent visit of Russian Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov to Elemash (Elektrostal, Moscow region).

Kiriyenko informed Zubkov that Russia is going to build 26 new nuclear power units by 2020 against just 30 units built throughout the whole Soviet period.

President of TVEL Yuri Olenin told Zubkov about the whole nuclear fuel production chain, about fuel elements and fuel assemblies for nuclear reactors. He said that such units are manufactured at Elemash. “One gram of our nuclear fuel is equivalent to several dozens tons of coal,” Olenin said.

Kiriyenko pointed out that nuclear power plants have proved to be one of the safest power facilities in Russia and in the world.

Concerning the establishment of vertically integrated Atomenergoprom holding, Kiriyenko said that many nuclear companies in the world are merging into big holdings. In Russia, before Atomenergoprom, there were over 40 such companies. “They will tear us into pieces,” Kiriyenko said, meaning the western rivals. “They won’t,” Zubkov said.

“Today, we should finalize our inter-governmental nuclear energy agreement with Japan so as to start supplying that country with nuclear fuel,” Kiriyenko said.

Zubkov showed special interest in the stand about floating nuclear power plant. Kiriyenko told him that it was a unique project. “This project is absolutely safe and many foreign clients are already showing interest in it. You can put such a plant near the shore, let it work for 30 years and take it away and you have absolutely clean shore (green field) again,” Kiriyenko said.