Friday, September 9 2016 17:01

ArmInfo. Interest towards the Armenian NPP Unit 2 life extension program is increasing in Armenia, General Director of Rusatom Service company Yevgeniy Salkov has stated today answering to ArmInfo's question.

According to him this was registered during the fourth session of the working group on project implementation that was held today. "A lot of potential participants attended the session", Salkov noted adding that Rosatom in turn is ready to provide guidance to Armenian partners in organizing procurement procedures. The General Director informed that on the two online platforms of Rosatom 24 and 15 Armenian companies respectively have already registered. However, they are not directly related to nuclear energy. "In any case we will continue popularizing the project to increase the number of Armenian companies. One should also realize that these companies will also be able to enter the Russian market, where wide-scale work is conducted in the field of nuclear energy. "Moreover, Rosatom has a portfolio of orders worth tens of billion dollars. Besides, there are also projects in the field of thermal energy ad nuclear medicine", Yevgeniy Salkov emphasized adding that Armenia as a member of the Eurasian Economic Union may get additional preferences.

Salkov also noted that procurements within Armenian NPP modernization program are made according to a common standard of Rosatom, one of the best systems in Russia, as it is transparent and efficient. Any entity independent of its location may participate in tenders. At the same time the winner of the tender is announced openly and the organizer has no right to influence on the results. "Our main goal is to create real competitive conditions for all the participants to choose the suppler offering the best terms", Salkov noted adding that the price is not the only criteria, as the equipment and services should be qualitative.

To recall, the Armenian NPP, the only NPP in the region, is located near the town of Metsamor (some 30km to the south of Yerevan). The first unit was put into exploitation in 1976, the second in 1980. At the beginning of 1989, the plant was closed down for political ideas, and then the second unit was reactivated because of acute energy crisis at the beginning of 1995. Two power units of Russian model pressurized water reactor- 440, with capacity of 815 megawatt in total were installed at the Armenian NPP. The share of NPP in total electricity output is 40%. At present measures are being taken to prolong the lifespan of the Armenian NPP till 2027.  Armenia and Russia signed in Moscow an agreement implying provision of 270 mln USD loan to Armenia for 15 years at 3 p.a. In addition, Russia will grant 30 mln USD to Armenia for the same purposes.  Rusatom Service, Rosatom SC, is the general contractor of the project. However, only construction of the new unit of NPP will solve problem of supplying electricity in the country. The cost of construction is 5 bln USD.