Ukraine spent $68.666 million on nuclear fuel for its power plants in the five months of 2019.
According to the State Statistics Service, $17.437 million was spent on Russian fuel and $51.229 million on Swedish fuel. Thus, Russia’s TVEL provided 25.4% of its fuel, and Sweden’s Westinghouse 74.6%.
Ukraine in January-February 2019 acquired nuclear fuel for a total of $45.155 million.
According to the State Statistics Service, in the two months of the current year, Russian-made fuel was purchased for Ukrainian nuclear power plants for $17.437 million, fuel from Sweden for $27.719 million.
Thus, the share of purchases of nuclear fuel by Ukraine for the reporting period from TVEL (Russia) in monetary terms was 38.6%, from Westinghouse (Sweden) some 61.4%.
The operator of all four NPPs in Ukraine is state-owned enterprise Energoatom, which purchases nuclear fuel under the contracts with TVEL and Westinghouse Electric Sweden.
Westinghouse (the United States) is ready to fully provide all Ukrainian nuclear power plants (NPP) with nuclear fuel, the press service of the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry has reported, citing the company representatives during a meeting with Energy Minister Ihor Nasalyk.
The company assured about the availability of all the technical and logistic capabilities to reach the 100% provision of all power units of Ukrainian nuclear power plants with nuclear fuel. Now the company supplies fuel to six VVER-1000 power units. The third unit of Yuzhnoukrainsk NPP is completely switched to the fuel of Westinghouse.
“Considering the existing threats to the national security of Ukraine, in case of cessation of supplies of nuclear fuel from the Russian Federation, we are ready to ensure the operation of power units at Ukrainian NPPs using fuel from Westinghouse,” the minister said.
In addition, the parties are considering the expansion of cooperation regarding the company’s participation in the construction of a nuclear fuel treatment plant in Ukraine, as well as the implementation of the Ukraine-EU Energy Bridge project.
Currently, Westinghouse occupies 40% of the Ukrainian nuclear fuel market, supplying it to six out of 15 reactors.
As reported, in early 2018 Energoatom and Westinghouse Electric extended the contract for the supply of nuclear fuel until 2025.
Ukraine purchased nuclear fuel for a total of $213.511 million in January-May 2018, which was 21.7% more than for the same period in 2017 ($175.490 million).
Over the period under review, Ukraine bought Russian nuclear fuel worth $138.645 million for Ukrainian nuclear power plants, while nuclear fuel shipments from Sweden totaled $74.867 million, the State Statistics Service of Ukraine said.
Thus, the share of purchases of nuclear fuel by Ukraine in January-May-2018 from Russia’s TVEL in monetary terms was to 64.9%, that from Westinghouse (Sweden) stood at 35.1%.
National Nuclear Generating Company Energoatom has signed a contract with Orano (earlier Areva, France) to assess the possibility of the practical implementation of services to reprocess spent nuclear fuel assemblies from Ukrainian reactors of VVER-1000 type at the French La Hague Reprocessing Plant. “This contract marks an important step for Orano. It is a real success for us. It will pave a way for treating Ukrainian spent nuclear fuel by the French reprocessing sector,” the press service of Energoatom reported, citing Senior Executive Vice President of Orano’s Recycling Business Unit Pascal Aubret.
Energoatom said that after producing electricity in a power reactor, the spent fuel contains 96% of recyclable materials and 4% of final waste. The process implemented at Orano’s La Hague plant separates the reusable materials, which will once again be used to produce energy, from the final waste which undergoes safe and stable conditioning and packaging.
According to an announcement of Energoatom in the ProZorro e-procurement system, the cost of the contract signed with Orano Cycle is EUR 1.395 million. The company is to finish the study before December 31, 2020.
At present, Energoatom sends spent nuclear fuel for reprocessing to the Russian Federation. At the same time, there is the problem of handling VVER-1000 spent fuel from Westinghouse. So, while carrying out research on the possibility of processing Westinghouse spent nuclear fuel, information about the design of fuel assemblies is used. Westinghouse agreed to provide relevant information only to Areva.
