Rosatom’s Fuel Division, TVEL, has delivered the first fuel for the VVER-1200 reactor at unit 7 of China’s Tianwan NPP in Jiangsu province. The initial load and a number of reserve fuel assemblies were manufactured at the Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant (NZKhK – Novosibirskii Zavod KhimConsentratov) as part of TVEL’s contract to supply fuel for Tianwan 7&8.
In 2018, Russia and China signed four agreements, including for the construction of two VVER-1200 reactors for Tianwan units 7&8. Construction of unit 7 began in May 2021, and unit 8 in February 2022. CNNC said construction of Tianwan 8 is progressing in an orderly manner. It is scheduled to be commissioned in 2027. Tianwan 1-4, with VVER-1000 reactors, commissioned between 2007 and 2018, are already in operation. Units 5&6 with Chinese ACPR-1000s were commissioned in 2020 and 2021.
This was the first supply of fuel for a VVER-1200 reactor in China. Previously, fuel for the four VVER-1000 reactors at Tianwan 1-4 was also manufactured by NZKhK. However, the production of fuel assemblies for VVER-1000s is now being produced at the Yibin Fuel Plant in Sichuan under a TVEL licence using Russian components. Localisation of fuel production for VVER-1200 reactors is being completed at the same plant.
“The first delivery of nuclear fuel for the VVER-1200 reactor is a new page in the history of our cooperation with Chinese partners,” said Oleg Grigoriev, Senior Vice President for Commerce & International Business at TVEL. In 2026, we plan to supply three more initial loads for the Tianwan and Xudabao NPP units, which is a record for nuclear fuel shipments in one year. In general, our partnership with CNNC companies is developing very dynamically, including several areas at once, including localisation of production, fuel supply for fast neutron reactors, among others. At the same time, the potential of our cooperation in the nuclear fuel cycle is far from exhausted. We see broad prospects for its development and we are ready to offer new products and solutions to the Chinese market.”
