MURMANSK. Oct 8 (Interfax-AVN) - A delegation of the Canadian Foreign Affairs and International Trade Ministry has arrived at the Nerpa shipyard (Snezhnogorsk, Murmansk region) to discuss further cooperation in nuclear and radiation safety for the Kola Peninsula.
"The discussion will focus on a project to reshape three-compartment reactor units, removed from recycled nuclear submarines, to one-compartment reactor units to be stored on Saida Spit," Nerpa spokesperson Irina Anzulatova told the press.
Eighty-seven three-compartment reactor units, removed from recycled nuclear submarines, are currently kept on a floating facility at Saida Spit, in the Nerpa water area, at the SRZ-1 shipyard in Polyarny and at the Zvyozdochka ship repair yard in Severodvinsk, she said.
"Storing on a floating facility is a potential threat to the natural environment and is expensive, given the need to conduct regular pressurization and anti-corrosion maintenance," she also said.
Canada earlier financed the recycling of 16 Russian multi-purpose nuclear submarines at Zvyozdochka under the Global Partnership program, approved by the G8 summit in 2002. The three-compartment rector units, removed from recycled submarines, were moved to Saida Spit at different times.