Ukraine's Minister of Energy and Coal Industry Igor Nasal has said US-based company Westinghouse (part of Toshiba) is ready to begin construction of nuclear fuel plant in Ukraine to produce fuel to replace that currently supplied by Russia.
As part of a policy to diversify the sources of supply of nuclear fuel Ukraine plans in 2016 to source more than a third of the fuel for its NPPs from Westinghouse. In 2015 most fuel was supplied by Russia.
Ukrainian nuclear utility Energoatom said it plans to load TVS-WR Westinghouse fuel in six nuclear units - two at the South-Ukraine NPP and four at the Zaporozhye NPP, according to a report in Ukrainian weekly Nedeli Ukraina. In mid-June TVS-WR was loaded into unit 5 at Zaporozhye NPP. The fuel was delivered to the site in February. Earlier Westinghouse fuel was loaded into two units of the South-Ukraine NPP.
The Director of Russia's Foreign Ministry Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, Mikhail Ulyanov, said Moscow regrets Kiev's decision to replace Russian nuclear fuel, which transforms Ukraine into a testing ground for experimental US fuel assemblies. He said the Ukrainian authorities had based their decision not on technical and economic considerations, but on political considerations " that clearly run counter to the interests of Ukraine and its people" he told RIA Novosti.
