OREANDA-NEWS. December 5, 2008. The new contract has been signed by the chairman of the board of Inter RAO UES Yevgeny Dod and Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Armenia Armen Movsissyan, reports the press service of Inter RAO UES.

According to the document, the company will continue managing the activities of Armenian Nuclear Power Plant, particularly, its financial flows, investment policies, payments, financial-economic accounting.

The first five-year contract was signed Sept 18 2003. Due to Inter RAO’s efforts by 2006 Armenian NPP had managed to stabilize its economic situation, to repay its debts for nuclear fuel supplies and to start buying new fuel by own money.

Presently, Armenia is preparing for decommissioning its existing reactor and building a new one with a capacity of over 1,000MW. As a result, it will be able to export electricity to neighbor states.

The two 440MW WWER reactors of the existing Armenian NPP were launched in 1976 and 1980. The reactors are able to resist 8-point earthquake.

However, after the earthquake of 1988 the plant was stopped. It was restarted in Nov 1995. The 1st unit is still idle while the 2nd one generates 40%-50% of the country’s total electricity.

Inter RAO UES is controlled by Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation. It exports and imports electricity and owns power generating assets in Russia and abroad.