RUSSIA TO OWN 50 PERCENT OF NEW ARMENIAN NUCLEAR PLANT

Asbarez
Dec 3rd, 2009

Metsamor Nuclear Power Plan in Armenia

YEREVAN (RFE/RL)-Armenia’s government unveiled on Thursday plans
to create a Russian-Armenian joint venture tasked with building a
nuclear power station in place of the aging soviet-era facility at
Metsamor by 2017.

Ministers also approved the overall design and main technical
parameters of the plant’s reactor to be purchased from Russia. With
a projected capacity of just over 1,000 megawatts, it would be more
than twice as powerful as Metsamor’s sole operating reactor which
generates roughly 40 percent of the country’s electricity.

"We are making a political decision today," Prime Minister Tigran
Sargsyan said during a cabinet meeting. "We are agreeing to set up a
joint venture with our Russian partners with a 50/50 ratio. This fits
into the strategy of building a new nuclear plant which we approved
at a meeting of the National Security Council."

In accordance with the decision, the joint venture will be set
up by the Armenian government and a state-run Russian company,
Atmostroyexport. The new plant is to have a Russian AES-92 pressurized
light-water reactor with what Energy and Natural Resources Minister
Armen Movsisian described as a "European safety certificate."

Movsisian told fellow cabinet members that the decision is based on the
recommendations of WorleyParsons, an Australian engineering company
that was chosen by the government in May to manage its extremely
ambitious nuclear project.

AES-92 is a new generation of the Soviet-era VVER reactors that has
been licensed by regulatory authorities in Russia and declared to meet
safety requirements of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The government instructed Movsisian’s ministry to start preparations
for supply contracts with Russian nuclear energy companies.

Vahram Petrosian, director of a Yerevan-based research institute
specializing in atomic energy, welcomed the choice of the reactor,
saying that Russian nuclear facilities are "among the best in the
world" not least because of the quality of their metal casings. "It
is well known in the world that Russian metal is good metal," he
told RFE/RL.

Petrosian noted at the same time that the government should purchase
and install other, "auxiliary" segments of the new plant from Western
manufacturers. "In my view – and I think this is what is going to be
done – it would be right for some of those auxiliary systems to be
American-made," he said.

"A lot also depends on measurement and control devices," added the
nuclear scientist. "It is important to make the right choice of device
operators. They can, for example, be obtained from France."

The government has still not answered the key lingering question of
who will finance the planned work on Metsamor’s replacement. The
total cost of the project is estimated at a whopping $5 billion,
a sum twice higher than Armenia’s state budget for this year. The
initial authorized capital of the Russian-Armenian venture will stand
at a symbolic 60 million drams ($156,000).

Movsisian has repeatedly stated that Yerevan will succeed in finding
foreign investors interested in the project. He said in May that the
construction work will start by the beginning of 2011.

"The process of constructing the atomic plant is going smoothly,"
Prime Minister Sarkisian insisted on Thursday.