OREANDA-NEWS. A delegation of six senators of the Russian Federal Council, members of FC's Commission for Natural Monopolies, and representatives of Rosatom and TVEL have paid an official visit to Paks nuclear power plant in Hungary. The senators were shown to the reactor hall of the second power unit and plant's training center.

According to the TVEL press service, at the meeting with the plant management the Deputy Plant Manager Istvan Hamvas briefed the senators on the plant operations. In particular, he said that "a decision has been made to extend life of the plant reactors and the life extension work has started in Russia already. We see it is feasible to extend their lives. In this endeavor we are supported by both Russian partners and IAEA."

Istvan Hamvas noted that at present Paks NPP is implementing a reactor uprate (up to 500 MW) project with the assistance of Russian nuclear specialists. "We have raised power capacity at two reactors already and all four reactors will operate at a higher power by 2009. The feasibility studies were carried out by TVEL with an involvement of related Russian organizations. The equipment, in particular, pumps were manufactured for us at Leningrad Machine Engineering Plant," he noted. According to Hamvas, they plan call for replacing high pressure steam generators with an involvement of Atomstroyexport.

Grigori Noginski, the Head of the Russian delegation and the Chairman of the Nuclear Power Subcommission of the Federal Council's Commission on Natural Monopolies, responded noting that Russia had already had an experience in extending lives of reactors, in particular, of Novovoronezh NPP which operated reactor of the same design as Paks' "Our country is ready to provide necessary assistance in implementing Paks reactors life extension plans," he assured.

Valentin Mezhevich, the First Deputy Chairman of the Russian Federal Council's Commission on Natural Monopolies, added to his MP colleague's remark: "Russia has been a many-year partner of Paks NPP in fuel supplies. There have been not a single claim and delay over these years. We are ready to further supply the fuel without restraints which our politicians invent." Over more than 25 years of Paks NPP operation, during which TVEL has been the sole fuel supplier for the Hungarian plant, there has been not a single case of supply disruption recorded.

The senators' visit was organized by the Hungarian utility MVM Group. On October 30, the senators visited also the Hungarian Parliament (Hungarian National Assembly) and met their counterparts from the Commission for Economy and Information Science.