MOSCOW. Feb 25 (Interfax-AVN) - Russia's experience in cannibalizing nuclear-powered submarines may be useful for Great Britain in accomplishing similar missions, Department of Trade and Industry Minister Nigel Griffiths said on Wednesday.
Great Britain and the U.S. will definitely have problems with scrapping of their own submarines in the future, the minister told reporters in Moscow. Russia has a huge experience in this field, and Russian-British cooperation is quite possible there, he said summing up results of his visit to the town of Severodvinsk in the Arkhangelsk region, where Britain is assisting Russia in the scrapping of two nuclear submarines written off from the Russian Navy.
Britain assigned up to USD20m for the project.
Griffiths praised progress in the project's implementation achieved by Russia's Zvyozdochka and Sevmash enterprises. He said the work quality was on a high level, the money had been spent properly, and the goals of the Global Partnership program were being achieved. In response to a question from Interfax-Military News Agency, he said he would tell his peers in London that the enterprises he had visited were meeting the world's most advanced standards.
In December 2003, Britain announced the assignment of GBP40m (USD75.56m) for assistance to Russia and other former Soviet republics in coping with their nuclear, chemical and biological inheritance. Scrapping of Oscar-class submarines, construction of a spent nuclear fuel storage in Murmask, planning of safe removal and storage of 21,000 reactor gags at a former Navy base, and construction of infrastructure for a large chemical weapons destruction facility in Shchuchye in the Kurgan region were named the priority projects in the field.
As many as 99 nuclear submarines are awaiting cannibalization in Russia. Thirteen submarines were cannibalized and spent nuclear fuel was unloaded from 12 submarines in 2003. A total of 94 Russian submarines were scrapped as of late 2003. As of the present time, the Russian Navy has written off 193 nuclear- powered submarines.
According to the Atomic Energy Ministry, the state budget for 2003 assigned RUB2.05bn (USD71.92m) for nuclear submarines' disposal. International aid for submarine scrapping amounted to about RUB800m (USD28.06m) that year. About USD4bn is required in the next 10 years to complete submarines' cannibalization and clear contaminated territories, the ministry believes.