The delivery of nuclear fuel to the Rooppur NPP under construction in Bangladesh will begin in September 2023 according to Minister of Science & Technology Yafesh Osman. The fuel will be delivered to Dhaka by air, and then transported by land transport to the plant site. The Bangladeshi military will take control of the ground part of the logistics operation. “We are expecting that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general and Russian president will virtually join our prime minister at the handover programme," he said.
The Rooppur plant is being built by Rosatom on the eastern bank of the Ganges River in Bangladesh’s Pabna district, about 160 km northwest of Dhaka. It will comprise two VVER-1200 reactors. In November 2011, Russia and Bangladesh signed an inter-governmental agreement on cooperation in the construction of the NPP and in mid-December 2015, a general contract was signed. Construction began in 2021. Construction of the unit 1 began in November 2017 and unit 2 in July 2018. All the plant's fuel is being provided by Rosatom under a contract finalised in August 2019, and the final protocol approving deliver was signed in May. The used fuel will be returned to Russia for processing.
Image courtesy of Rosatom
