OREANDA-NEWS. April 08, 2010. The transfer of shares in the Engineering Centre "Russian Gas Centrifuge" (RGC) from Techsnabexport (Tenex) to Rosatom subsidiary AtomEnergoProm is the latest development in the process to consolidate Russia's state-owned conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication companies into a new fuel company based on TVEL.

AEP announced that it had acquired a 52.12% stake in RGC, which was set up as a subsidiary of Tenex in April 2008. RGC consists of seven enterprises connected to the research and development of gas centrifuges and their manufacture: Tochmash Vladimir Production Association, Kovrov Mechanical Plant, OKB-Nizhny Novgorod, Centrotech-SPb, Novouralsk Scientific and Construction Centre, Novouralsk Instrumentation Plant, and Urals Gas Centrifuge Plant.

By the end of June, AEP plans to consolidate 100% of RGC shares and transfer them to TVEL. AEP will also transfer to TVEL shares in the UC Enrichment and Conversion Complex, which in turn will consolidate all of the shares of four enrichment plants: Angarsk Electrolysis and Chemical Complex (AECC), Electrochemical Plant (ECP), Urals Electrochemical Combine (UECC) and Siberian Chemical Combine (SCC).

Rosatom expects to complete the formation of the new fuel company in 2010.

President Vladimir Putin signed documents in April 2007 to create AEP as a vertically-integrated holding company for the entire Russian civil nuclear industry. AEP is an amalgamation of the country's most significant nuclear enterprises: AtomEnergoMash; AtomStroyExport; Rosenergoatom; Tenex; and TVEL. It will eventually unite 89 enterprises of Russia's nuclear industry.

The result will be the largest nuclear company in the world, which will research, design, build, operate, maintain and decommission nuclear power plants while mining, converting, enriching and fabricating nuclear fuel for them in Russia and abroad.

The restructuring and rationalisation of Russia's nuclear industry is designed to support its ambitious nuclear build programme and to increase the competitiveness of Russian companies on the international market.