OREANDA-NEWS. May 28, 2009. At least five countries have shown interest in TVEL’s project to create alternative nuclear fuel supplier outside Russia, Vice President of TVEL Vasily Konstantinov said during a roundtable at Atomexpo 2009.

“Over 5 countries have shown interest in this project and we have to choose which of them will be our first partner,” Konstantinov said.

“This project must be started and successfully finalized,” he said noting that TVEL had set a number of criteria for selecting partners under this project.

One of the requirements is that an applicant state should have reactors of Russian design (the optimal number of 8–10). “The more reactors the country has the better the economics of the plant will be. At the initial stage, the plant will assemble fuel assemblies. One more important requirement is long-term supplies of Russian uranium and uranium enrichment services to the plant. At first, the fuel pellets will be supplied from Russia but, subsequently, some of the components may be localized,” Konstantinov said.