OREANDA-NEWS. June 17, 2015. The International Conference “Bulgarian Nuclear Energy – National, Regional and World Energy Security” took place. It was organized by the Bulgarian Atomic Forum “Bulatom” and was held under the patronage of the Bulgarian Nuclear Regulatory Agency, the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the European Atomic Forum “Foratom”.

“Nuclear energy is the prerequisite for energy stability and is a stimulus for economic development”, Kiril Tsotchev, Deputy Chairman of the Bulgarian National Assembly, said in his welcome speech. He also added that the parliamentary group of ABV had filed at the Council of Ministers a document, depicting the status of the Bulgarian energy sector and the steps needed to be undertaken for its revival.

During the plenary meeting, the Regional Vice President of ROSATOM Vadim Titov presented the company’s integrated solution for the international markets. He introduced all participants to the international projects of the state corporation, including those in Bulgaria. “In a consortium, together with the French EDF, we are executing projects in the field of nuclear power plant service: justifying the possibility to extend the exploitation life of unit 5 in Kozloduy NPP with 60 years. The project is being realized according to the schedule. There are big perspectives not only to Bulgaria, but also to other European countries in this direction”, Vadim Titiov underlined.

He specified that ROSATOM was at present the company number one in the world with regard to construction of nuclear power plants for foreign markets, simultaneously executing projects for the equipment of 29 units in various countries in Europe, the Middle East and the Asian-Pacific region. The international order portfolio of  ROSATOM in 2014 was 101.4 billion USD for a 10-year period. Vadim Titov pointed in his presentation that ROSATOM was today offering various financial solutions, including being an investment partner, as in Finland and Turkey.

The key advantage of ROSATOM is the company’s experience in the serial taking into exploitation of nuclear units in contemporary conditions. Titov underlined that in the past 5 years ROSATOM had taken into exploitation 5 units: two of them were the first unit in Kudankulam NPP in India and Bushehr NPP in Iran. These two were awarded as projects of the year in the “Nuclear Energy” nomination of the Power Engineering magazine (United States).

“ROSATOM consists of companies for all stages of a nuke’s lifecycle, starting from extraction and enrichment of uranium all the way to decommissioning of plants. Therefore, we are able to control the price of each production stage, as well as the electricity price per kWh produced by our NPPs. Finally, the client is interested in receiving the nuke’s electricity as a product, not only the plant itself. With regard to this issue, guarantying the price is to us in the foreground, as this figure is crucial both for industrial consumers and population”, Vadim Titov commented.

During the second conference day, dedicated to modernization, technical maintenance and decommissioning of plants, the experience of ROSATOM in the field of spent fuel processing was presented by Igor Gusakov-Stanyukovich, Deputy Director General of the Federal Center for Nuclear and Radiation Safety.

The conference was attended by more than 200 leading experts, representatives of the companies in the nuclear sector, state institutions, diplomats from Bulgaria, Russia, France, Japan, USA, Poland, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Slovakia, South Africa, Ukraine and other countries.