CONGRATULATIONS TO USUBC MEMBER HOLTEC
International, Dr. Kris Singh, President and V.P.for Nuclear Projects, Bill Woodward, for signing $200 million contract for construction of spent nuclear fuel storage facility at Chornobyl. See five news articles below:
1. CHORNOBYL NPP, HOLTEC INT SIGN CONTRACT TO BUILD $200 MILLION SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL STORAGE FACILITY
Interfax Ukraine News, Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, September 17, 2007
KYIV - The Chornobyl NPP state company and U.S. company Holtec International on the construction of a spent nuclear fuel storage facility.
Chornobyl NPP Director General Ihor Hramotkin and Holtec President and Chief Executive Officer Kris Singh signed the deal in Kyiv on Monday in the presence of Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) President Jean Lemierre.
A joint, 52-month project to build a storage facility for spent nuclear fuel with Holtec International is estimated to cost $200 million dollars, deputy chief of the presidential secretariat Oleksandr Chaly said. The project complies with International Atomic Energy Agency standards, he added.
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2. UKRAINE SIGNS TWO HUGE CONTRACTS, ONE FOR SAFE CONFINEMENT SARCOPHAGUS, ONE FOR STORAGE OF SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL AT CHORNOBYL NUCLEAR POWER PLANT French company Novarka and U.S. company Holtec International
Press Office of President Victor Yushchenko Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, September 17, 2007
KYIV - President Victor Yushchenko on Monday attended a ceremony to sign a contract between the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant and the French construction company Novarka to build the New Safe Confinement and a deal between the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and the American energy technology company Holtec International to build Storage for Spent Nuclear Fuel 2.
Yushchenko said today's ceremony was a "great historic event." "After searching for engineering, political, technological and financial solutions for twenty years we are now laying the first fundamental brick in this project, which is called the construction of the safe sarcophagus at the unit of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant and the storage for spent nuclear fuel," he said.
Yushchenko said the event had "exceptional importance" for Ukraine and the world. "On behalf of the Ukrainian state, I would like to thank all of you for this wonderful job.
"I am convinced today we will be able to say frankly to the nation and the international community, perhaps for the first time, that there has been a response to the problem of building the New Safe Confinement at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant," he said and added this was a "great step in the cause to minimize the aftereffects of the Chornobyl disaster."
Yushchenko said the NSC would protect other countries as well: "We are speaking about the unique planetary project, as the danger that has been emerging from this place affects not only Ukraine [but also other states]."
The president thanked the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development [EBRD] and the donor states for making the project possible. He said Ukraine had fulfilled its international obligations to close the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
"Ukraine has completed the conservation of the facility, which will make it safe for fifteen years, so any nuclear accident there is now impossible," he said, urging Novarka and Holtec International to implement the project "rhythmically and in solidarity."
LINK: http://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/data/1_19003.html
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3. UKRAINE'S FUEL AND ENERGY MINISTER AND US ENERGY SECRETARY DISCUSS COOPERATION IN ENERGY SECTOR
Interfax Ukraine Economic, Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, September 18, 2007
VIENNA, Austria - Fuel and Energy Minister of Ukraine Yuriy Boiko and U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman have met to discuss cooperation in the energy sector between Ukraine and the United States.
Last Sunday they met in Vienna, Austria as a part of a meeting of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) Organization.
During the meeting, the Ukrainian minister praised the initiatives of the U.S. government and thanked Bodman for his personal contribution to the creation of global nuclear energy partnership.
He said that Ukraine sees great prospects in the activities of the organization in settling urgent problems and promoting the further development of the world's nuclear sectors.
Boiko said that Ukraine and the United States have already had successful experience in international cooperation in the nuclear sector, in particular, the project on the standardization of Ukrainian nuclear fuel.
The minister thanked his counterpart for settling issues on additional financing of the project, adding that the diversification of nuclear fuel supplies is strategically important for Ukraine.
CENTRAL NUCLEAR WASTE STORAGE FACILITY, HOLTEC Boiko also said that another strategically important project for Ukraine is the project to build a central nuclear waste storage facility, and noted that the U.S. company Holtec had won the tender to build the facility.
He said that the realization of the project would help Ukraine to save $10 billion over 10 years. He said that an additional agreement on the possibility to carry out a restricted volume of work before the Ukrainian cabinet adopts a law on the building of the central nuclear waste storage facility was signed in 2007 in order to speed up the realization of the project.
In turn, Bodman said he highly appreciated joint work of the two countries on the standardization of nuclear fuel. Moreover, the sides discussed the visit of Ukrainian specialist on alternative energy, which is scheduled for next week.
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4. UKRAINE: FUEL & ENERGY MINSTER BOIKO PREDICTS HOLTEC PROJECT TO CONSTRUCT CENTRALIZED SPENT FUEL STORAGE FACILITY WILL ECONOMIZE USD 10 BILLION IN TEN YEARS Boiko Meets with U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman in Vienna
Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, September 17, 2007
KYIV - Ukraine's Fuel and Energy Minister Yuriy Boiko predicts that the realization of a project to construct a centralized spent fuel storage facility for Rivne, Southern Ukrainian, and Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plants will economize USD 10 billion in ten years.
Ukrainian News learned this from the press service of the Fuel and Energy Ministry, which quoted Boiko at a meeting with U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman in Vienna (Austria) on September 16.
The statement reads that the meeting took place in the frames of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). Boiko highly assessed the initiatives of the U.S. government and thanked Bodman for his contribution in the creation of the GNEP.
The Ukrainian minister emphasized that Ukraine saw great perspectives for the activities of the GNEP on the settlement of vital problems and further development of the nuclear power industry in the world.
Boiko further said that the project to construct the centralized spent fuel storage facility for Ukrainian NPPs, a tender of which has been won by Holtec International (the United States), was of strategic importance for Ukraine's energy security.
According to Boiko, an additional agreement on the realization of the project was concluded this year about the possibility of a limited volume of works ahead of the endorsement by the Ukrainian parliament of a law on the construction of centralized spent fuel storage facility.
Boiko noted that Ukraine and the United States had successful experience in international cooperation in the nuclear power industry, including within a project on qualification of Ukrainian nuclear fuel.
The Ukrainian minister thanked Bodman for the settlement of issues related to additional finance to the project and noted that the diversification of nuclear fuel was strategically important for Ukraine.
Bodman highly assessed the joint work by Ukraine and the United States on the qualification of Ukrainian fuel.
Bodman further said, according to the press service, that it was necessary to secure transparent procedures of cooperation in the realization of a project on joint exploration and submission of an application form by Naftohaz Ukrainy national joint stock company and the U.S. Marathon International Petroleum Ltd. to receive a license for exploration and extraction of carbohydrates in the northwest part of the Dniprovsko- Donetska depression.
Boiko and Bodman discussed a visit of Ukrainian specialists on alternative energy to the United States to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory
(NREL) in Denver.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, in December 2005, Enerhoatom and Holtec International, the United States, signed a contract on construction of the centralized spent fuel storage facility for Rivne NPP, Southern Ukrainian NPP, and Khmelnytskyi NPP.
By the end of 2009, Ukraine intends to stop exporting spent fuel to Russia after the centralized spent fuel storage is built.
The first stage of the facility has to save 2,500 reactors of VVER-1000 type and 1,080 reactors of VVER-440 type. Zaporizhia NPP has a spent nuclear fuel facility.
On September 16, Ukraine officially joined the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. Organization's principles are peaceful use of nuclear materials and formation of joint view concerning use of relevant technologies, increase of the nuclear reactor level and handling with nuclear wastes.
Besides, the cooperation accepts preparation of joint political decisions in the field of nonproliferation of nuclear weapon.
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5. BREAKTHROUGH FOR CHERNOBYL NUCLEAR DECOMMISSIONING PROGRAM IN UKRAINE, TWO MAJOR CONTRACTS SIGNED
UNIAN News, Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, September 17, 2007
KYIV - International efforts to make the scene of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident environmentally safe have taken a major step forward, according to a press release, forwarded to UNIAN by EBRD.
Today Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant signed two important contracts, one to build a new steel structure to seal off the damaged unit 4 with the Novarka consortium and another one to complete the spent nuclear fuel storage with Holtec International.
Currently unit 4 is protected by a shelter built immediately after the accident in 1986 under extremely hazardous conditions and which, despite recent successful stabilisation works, is decaying.
The "New Safe Confinement" will be an arch-shaped structure 105 metres high, 150 metres long and with a span of 260 metres. It will be constructed on the site and later be slid over unit 4.
Construction work is expected to take 48-52 months and the shelter will then create the conditions for the ultimate dismantling of Chernobyl's unit 4 which still contains 95 percent of its original nuclear inventory.
Construction of the New Safe Confinement is the most visible project under the Chernobyl Shelter Implementation Plan (SIP) agreed between the Government of Ukraine and the international community in 1997.
The plan contained many other elements which had to be completed over recent years in order to allow work on the confinement to begin. The total SIP cost is now estimated to be $1.39 billion.
SECOND CONTRACT SIGNED WITH HOLTEC INT
A second contract which was signed with Holtec International is equally important. Holtec's assignment is to complete the spent nuclear fuel storage facility for more than twenty thousand spent fuel assemblies generated during the operation of the Units 1-3 up to December 2000.
An approximately 1.5 year design and regulatory approval phase will be followed by delivery and installation of the equipment.
The facility, to ensure safe and secure storage of the Chernobyl spent fuel for one hundred years, is a key element of the overall Chernobyl decommissioning plan.
International donors have made significant contributions to finance these projects via donations to the Chernobyl Shelter Fund and the Nuclear Safety Account, which are managed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Together with the Government of Ukraine the Bank also ensures supervision of the effective implementation of the projects.
EBRD President Jean Lemierre said this is an important day for Ukraine and the world. "This shows what Ukraine and the international community working together can achieve on a very difficult and complex issue.
"Everything that has been achieved so far is proof of the determination of all parties concerned to work together, to overcome difficulties and to find and implement joint solutions.
"The successful implementation of the project depends not only on the progress of the construction work, but also on the continued commitment of both the Ukrainian authorities and the international community."
As of end-June 2007, the Chernobyl Shelter Fund has recorded total contributions of euro739 million from the following donors: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, European Community, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Donations have been made by Iceland, Israel, Korea, Portugal, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia.
The Nuclear Safety Account has so far received contributions of Euro285 million from: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, the European Community, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Ukraine and the United States.
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