Rosatom has completed installation of a transport gateway at unit 1 of the Rooppur NPP under construction in Bangladesh. The transport lock is the largest piece of equipment at the NPP site. It is 12.7 metres long, 10 metres wide and weighs 235 tonnes. Nuclear fuel is loaded and unloaded through the transport lock, as well as class I and II equipment at various stages of construction. After the launch of the station, fuel simulators will also be delivered through the lock, which will also be used during reactor maintenance.
“Installing the transport lock in the design position is an important stage for completing construction work on the building of the reactor compartment,” commented Alexei Deriy, Vice President of JSC ASE and Director of the Rooppur NPP construction project. Further work on the assembly and adjustment of the transport lock will be carried out after the covering of the dome at unit 1.
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 intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the construction of the NPP and in mid-December 2015, a general contract was signed. In early 2017, the Russian government provided Bangladesh with a state loan of $11.38bn to assist with the construction, which began in 2021.
Image: Installation of the transport lock at Unit 1 of the Rooppur nuclear power plant (courtesy of Rosatom)