OREANDA-NEWS. March 18, 2009. The State Committee on Nuclear Regulation of Ukraine and the Federal Service for Ecological, Technological and Nuclear Supervision of Russia (Rostekhnadzor) will cooperate on Khmelnitsky NPP project — the construction of the 3rd and 4th units with WWER reactors, Chairwoman of the State Committee on Nuclear Regulation of Ukraine Yelena Mikolaychuk said while visiting Elemash (Elektrostal, Russia).

“Russia is building new WWER-type reactors while Ukraine has just adopted a governmental decision. Our government has approved the proposal of the Ministry of Fuel and Energy that the 3rd and 4th units of Khmelnitsky Nuclear Power Plant should be built on the basis of WWER-1000 (V392) technology.”

“We must develop not only our nuclear industries but also our nuclear supervision agencies (regulators).”

“That’s why this week we are meeting with representatives of the Russian regulator in order to discuss prospects of cooperation in the framework of the WWER Regulator Forum, including the nuclear regulator of Bulgaria.”

The WWER Regulators Forum comprises countries operating WWER-type reactors, including Russia, Armenia, Bulgaria, Hungary, China, Slovakia, Ukraine, Finland and the Czech Republic. The forum meets once a year. In 2006 the meeting was attended by representatives of Iran and India.

Mikolaychuk said that Russia had excellent achievements in the field of nuclear fuel fabrication and one of the goals of her visit to Russia was familiarization with the production of the nuclear fuel used by Ukrainian nuclear power plants.

“In 2005 we licensed the last modification – TVS-A. But Russia has already developed new modifications and we would like to see what progress has been made and if this fuel can be used in Ukraine. The energy strategy of Ukraine envisages the construction of an own nuclear fuel production plant. TVEL is one of the potential partners and we are already negotiating with that company. This is a very serious task for us: if Rostekhnadzor has long experience in this field, we have had no such production so far,” Mikolaychuk said.

“We know how to regulate the safety of RBMK and WWER reactors but we are just learning how to deal with such plants, we are just drawing “a road map” here: on the one hand, we must do everything correctly so as to ensure the absolute safety of this project, on the other, we must do it quickly so as to avoid unnecessary delays,” Mikolaychuk said.

“Now that I have visited Elemash I have better understood what such a plant is like.”

“On the one hand, it is a modern production, on the other, it can be very compact. Russia has really excellent technologies in this field and our scientists have very wide scope for fruitful cooperation,” Mikolaychuk said.

Earlier, TVEL OJSC said that Russia was interested in creating an alternative producer and supplier of nuclear fuel for WWER reactor abroad and Ukraine was one of the priority partners under the project.

TVEL believes that Ukraine meets the three basic criteria for having own production of nuclear fuel: sufficient number of WWER reactors, equidistance from sales markets and aspiration to use Russian technologies in the future.