Viktor Opekunov, Chairman of Sub-Committee on Nuclear Energy of State Duma Committee on Energy, Transport and Communication

— The victory of TVEL is the third serious victory of the Russian nuclear power industry in Europe in the past year

Commenting on the victory of TVEL Corporation in the international tender for supplying nuclear fuel to Loviisa NPP (Finland), State Duma deputy, Chairman of Sub-Committee on Nuclear Energy of State Duma Committee on Energy, Transport and Communication Viktor Opekunov says that this is the third serious victory of the Russian nuclear power industry in Europe in the past year. To remind, the first two are the victories in the tenders for supplying nuclear power to Temelin NPP (Czech republic) and for building two units at Belene NPP (Bulgaria).

Despite their individual peculiarities, the victories have revealed a general tendency: the Russian nuclear power industry is successfully developing. «All the three tenders met the highest market standards and involved world-level companies. And our victory has proved our success on the world market in a very wide range of directions: from reactor construction to nuclear power production,» says Opekunov.

He notes that today very many countries say that they are going to develop their nuclear power industries and so there will be many more such tenders in the future. Russia will certainly take part in them and the achievements of 2006 inspire hope for future success.

As was reported earlier, representatives of TVEL Corporation and Fortum (the leading energy concern of Northern Europe and Baltic states) met in Espo (Finland) on Dec 21 to sign a contract for prolonging nuclear power supplies to Loviisa, an NPP owned by Fortum.

The contract was the result of TVEL’s victory in an Oct international tender. Formerly, the 1st unit of Loviisa was fueled by BNFL (UK).

The Finnish victory was the second international victory of TVEL in 2006. In May the corporation won a tender for supplying fuel to Temelin NPP (Czech Republic) in 2010–2020. TVEL’s rival was Westinghouse, who supplied fuel to the plant in 2000–2006.