MOSCOW. July 25 (Interfax-AVN) - Russia's Atomstroiexport company has applied for participation in a contest for the construction of a storage facility for spent fuel from VVER-type water-moderated nuclear reactors in Ukraine.
"We have submitted all the necessary documents to participate in the tender and expect its results in the second half of this year," company CEO Viktor Kozlov told Interfax on Friday.
Ukraine's Energoatom national nuclear power generating company announced the competition to design, build and commission the facility to have a capacity of storing 2,500 spent fuel units from VVER-1000 reactors and 1,800 units from VVER-440 reactors.
At most the facility would receive 504 units from VVER-1000 reactors and 216 units from VVER-440 reactors a year.
One condition of the contest is that the units must be able to be safely withdrawn from the storage facility throughout the entire period of storage. Concrete or metal containers or modules must be built for the dry containment of spent fuel.
The contest is expected to be held in two stages: preliminary qualification and final selection. The deadline for submitting documents for the qualification round is July 29.
In April Energoatom set up the contest committee for the construction of the storage facility for the South Ukrainian Rivne and Khmelnitsky nuclear power plants. Spent fuel from them is currently exported to Russia. Experts believe that the construction of the facility will reduce storage costs by half to USD25 per kilo of uranium.
Atomstroiexport is a leader in the construction of nuclear facilities and auxiliaries for them abroad.