Yuri Semchenkov, Director of Nuclear Reactor Institute of Kurchatov Institute

– India is an important client and partner for Russia

Atomenergoproekt’s NPP-91 project that is presently being implemented in India (just like the NPP-92 project implemented in China) meets all safety standards. As a result, India will get a perfect competitive project.

According to the Russian-Indian inter-governmental agreement, the Kudankulam project is being carried out by Indian construction and installation companies. Almost 100 Russia engineers are supervising their work and providing assistance. The project is complying with the schedule. As regards the fuel for Kudankuam, it is standard fuel: Tianwan NPP in China use the same fuel. The deliveries have been carried out in line with the terms of the contract and IAEA’s requirements.

Russia and India are planning to build four more WWER-1000 reactors at Kudankulam.  This is good for the Indians as now they will have reactors of different design and will be able to compare them. India is an important client and partner for us. It has grandiose plans: it is planning to increase the capacities of its nuclear power plants to 40GW by 2025. Russia must actively expand into this big and promising market, first of all, because, geographically, we are closer to that country.

I think that the Russian-Indian strategic partnership has excellent prospects. I am absolutely convinced that the Russian nuclear power technologies will have a share in the Indian energy market.