OREANDA-NEWS. August 31, 2010.  On Thursday Russian ambassador in Belorussia Alexander Surikov told journalists that Belorussia was negotiating the establishment of a joint venture with Russia for sales of electric power generated by future Belorussian NPP. Formerly Belorussian authorities had declared that they were not going to establish any joint ventures.

“We have a timely information that the Belorussian party is negotiating the establishment of a joint venture for future energy realization, though the issue was previously disputed”, the ambassador said. “There are still some details that are to be worked on. Everything will be fine”, he added.

Belorussia is going to construct a nuclear power plant consisting of two power units. The first power unit is to be commissioned in 2016, the second one – in 2018. The construction will be performed by Russian specialists on the money of a Russian loan. The plant will be constructed on the basis of the NPP-2006 project of Atomenergoproekt Saint Petersburg Institute. Atomstroyeksport CJSC will become the general contractor of the construction.


At the beginning of the month Prime-Minister of Belorussian Vladimir Semashko declared that the establishment of a joint venture for sale of future NPP electric power was not under consideration. He acknowledged that the Russian party put forward the establishment of a joint enterprise as one of the conditions for signing of the set of NPP agreements. Upon that Semashko noted that Belorussia was ready to offer Russia its own variants.


In a week after Semashko’s statements, President of Belorussia Alexander Lukashenko said that Belorussia could refuse to cooperate with Russia in the NPP construction if it insisted on the joint venture. Lukashenko noted that Belorussia took out a loan for the plant construction and “the loan was not a cheap one”, but it was going to pay it out. In such a situation the Belorussian President was puzzled with the fact that Russia wanted to have part in their goods.

At present, the issue of a joint venture for future plant energy sale, together with the issues of financing of its infrastructure construction is the main sticking point for signing of the document suite. Semashko has considered that problem, but at the beginning of August he nevertheless said that the documents would have been signed not later than by the end of September.

The plant is to be constructed on the money of the Russian loan, but Belorussia is striving for financing, including the development of plant infrastructure whereas Russia refuses to finance it.