Lithuania’s state-owned nuclear transformation enterprise, Altra (formerly State Enterprise Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant), has launched a €400m ($455m) international tender to dismantle the reactor cores of its closed Ignalina NPP (INPP). This will be a world-first engineering operation to fully dismantle the active cores of RBMK-1500 reactors.
INPP comprised two water-cooled graphite-moderated channel-type RBMK-1500 reactors. Unit 1 came online in 1983 and unit 2 in 1987. Originally, unit 2 was scheduled for launch in 1986, but this was postponed following the Chernobyl accident, after which both units were de-rated to 1360 MWe. Lithuania agreed to close the plant as part of its accession agreement to the European Union (EU), which argued that lack of containment made the units unsafe. Ignalina 1 closed in 2004 and Ignalina 2 – which accounted for 25% of Lithuania’s electricity generating capacity and supplied about 70% of Lithuania’s electrical demand – closed in 2009. The EU is largely funding its decommissioning.
Lithuania gained control of the two units in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They were the largest RBMKs ever built and were unique to Lithuania. In April 2022, the last used fuel cartridge was removed from the reactor buildings to an intermediate storage facility at the plant site. Full completion of the dismantling of the reactors is planned for 2038.
The reactor cores – the central parts of the reactors, also referred to as the R3 zones – comprise the graphite stack, the surrounding structures and their filler materials. The cores are located in shafts measuring 21 by 21 metres in cross-section and 25 metres in depth.
In total, approximately 25,000 tonnes of materials will be dismantled across both reactors. A significant proportion of the materials in these zones consists of long-lived radioactive waste, making the dismantling process dependent on specialised technological solutions, international expertise, and the strictest nuclear and radiation safety requirements.
Due to extreme radiation levels inside the cores, much of the work will rely entirely on advanced, remote-controlled robotic technology rather than human entry. The two-stage procurement process, managed via the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Electronic Procurement Portal, is scheduled to award the contract in 2027. The core dismantling will take roughly 16 years to complete.
The operation is financed by the European Commission through the Ignalina International Decommissioning Support Fund (IIDSF), which is administered by the EBRD. Altra requires an elite international contractor or consortium capable of assuming absolute turnkey responsibility. The contract is governed by the internationally recognised FIDIC Yellow Book model, meaning the winner is solely responsible for design, equipment procurement, and final installation.
Contractor requirements include:
- Proven track record in designing and fabricating heavy-duty specialised remote-controlled robotic equipment to operate safely in highly radioactive, un-enterable zones.
- Capability to draft and secure all regulatory permits and safety documentations mandated by Lithuanian legislation and international nuclear regulators.
- Experience handling massive volumes of irradiated graphite and managing long-lived radioactive waste.
- Advanced industrial and radiation safety management systems to handle the clean-up of approximately 25,000 tonnes of radioactive core material.
Bidders must demonstrate annual turnover and liquid assets to handle a 16-year project lifecycle. If bidding as a joint venture, the past project track record, financial standing, and potential contract dispute disclosures of every member will be deeply audited. compliance with EBRD procurement policies and rules is essential.
Lithuania has explicitly banned Russian entities from its public and nuclear procurement tenders due to national security policies and strict EU sanctions. Furthermore, because the project is financed by the European Commission and administered by the EBRD, all bidders must adhere to strict international compliance frameworks that completely bar Russian firms.
However, as the designer of the RBMK reactor type, Russia holds the most institutional knowledge. Russia’s nuclear utility Rosenergoatom specifically established a dedicated RBMK Decommissioning Engineering Centre at the Leningrad NPP to pioneer methods for the serial decommissioning and safe dismantling of shutdown RBMK units. Major Western nuclear operators such as EDF or Westinghouse have no direct experience dismantling graphite-moderated channel reactors of this exact Soviet design.
However, because utilising Russian expertise is politically and legally impossible for Lithuania, the Western nuclear industry has been forced to innovate. The decommissioning of the Ignalina cores is being treated as a global testbed to break the Russian monopoly on RBMK engineering knowledge. In the preliminary phases of this project, Altra signed development contracts with major Western nuclear engineering companies including Westinghouse Electric Spain and EDF. These companies are looking to develop custom, pioneering technological solutions specifically to manage INPP’s irradiated graphite and core materials.
“The dismantling of the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant reactor cores is an unprecedented project that no country in the world has yet undertaken,” said Acting Minister of Energy Žygimantas Vaičiūnas. “Lithuania will become the first country to dismantle RBMK-1500 reactors, and the experience we gain together with the technological solutions we develop will provide valuable knowledge for other countries facing similar challenges in the future.
Altra CEO Linas Baužys noted: “This tender is an invitation to the international nuclear community to contribute to a project that has never before been undertaken anywhere in the world. We look forward to attracting internationally experienced companies and working together to deliver one of the world’s most complex nuclear reactor dismantling projects.”
