YEREVAN, March 12 /ARKA/. Armenian capital city Yerevan hosted today a regular, 8th  meeting of  a joint Armenian-Russian commission set up to coordinate a project to modernize and extend the service life of the second power unit of the Armenian nuclear power plant  in Mestamor, the press service of the Russian Rusatom Service told ARKA.

It said the agenda of the meeting included a set of issues such as the action plan for 2019 and the program of activities until 2021, the operating conditions of the 2nd unit of the facility after the scheduled preventive maintenance, as well as the extension of the intergovernmental agreement on cooperation between Russia and Armenia on this project. 

The parties also considered the issue of preparing a pilot project for the removal and reprocessing of a batch of the spent nuclear fuel.

The Russian delegation was headed by Kirill Komarov, First Deputy CEO of Rosatom State Corporation. The Armenian delegation by Garegin Baghramyan, Armenia’ First Deputy Minister of Energy Infrastructures and Natural Resources.

The Armenian Nuclear Power Plant is located some 30 kilometers west of Yerevan. It was built in the 1970s but was closed following a devastating earthquake in 1988. One of its two VVER 440-V230 light-water reactors was reactivated in 1995. 

In March 2014, Armenian government decided to extend the plant’s service life up to 2026 because of delay in building a new unit. The service life extension has become possible thanks to Russia’s financial resources. The country provided $270 million to Armenia as a loan and $30 million as a grant. 

The Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom is a global technological leader. It is handling the project designed to extend the service life of the 2nd power unit of the Armenian NPP. Rosatom also supplies fuel for the nuclear power plant and  implements joint projects in the fields of healthcare, education and training of specialists for the Armenian nuclear power industry .– 0–