Major construction works on Belarusian NPP to start in June 2013

MINSK, 13 September (BelTA) – Major construction works on the Belarusian nuclear power plant (NPP) will start on 15 June 2013, BelTA learnt from the department of public relations and information policy of the Nizhny Novgorod engineering company Atomenergoproyekt.

A meeting of the sixth operational group on the NPP project was led by First Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Vladimir Semashko on 12 September. Partaking in the meeting were representatives of the Belarusian government, NPP construction directorate (customer), the united company NIAEP-Atomstroyexport (the general designer of the power plant and the general contractor), Belarusian subcontractors, and the Grodno Oblast administration.

Before the session its participants examined the construction site where they discussed the progress in the construction of the manufacturing base and the power plant itself. The excavation of the foundation pit for energy unit No. 1 is in full swing. By 20 November 2012 the builders will have to complete bed drainage, which will simultaneously protect the bottom part of the excavation pit from frost penetration.

The works on the foundation pit are on schedule. More than 5,500 cubic meters of concrete have been poured, which accounts for 21% of the volume of the bed drainage, informed Yuri Pustovoy, Deputy Director of NIAEP -Director of the Representative Office in Belarus. Currently works are underway on 62 objects, 14 of which will be commissioned in 2012. Approximately 200 units of construction equipment and more than 800 workers are employed on the sites. The number of sites will increase to 35 in 2013.

Yuri Pustovoy suggested streamlining the schedule of issuing the project documentation. Time-bound objectives have been set. By the mid October Belenergostroi is to finish the construction of heat networks, by December Gomelpromstroi shall complete the water supply network. The meeting also discussed the tasks for 2013. The chief of the United Company NIAEP - Atomstroyexport Valery Limarenko stressed: "We want this energy facility crucial for Belarus to be built on time.”

The Belarusian nuclear power plant will have two power-generating units with the total capacity of up to 2,400MW (1,200MW each). It will be built at the Ostrovets site in Grodno Oblast. The design AES-2006 that fully meets international norms and IAEA recommendations has been chosen to build Belarus’ first nuclear power plant. The first unit is scheduled to come on stream in November 2018, the second one in July 2020.

The united company OAO NIAEP – ZAO Atomstroyexport (ZAO ASE) was founded in March 2012 by the relevant resolution of the state corporation for nuclear energy Rosatom. Thus, OAO NIAEP became the managing company of ZAO Atomstroyexport.