Yuri Semchenkov, director of Institute of Nuclear Reactors of Kurchatov Institute

– The contract for the construction of Belene NPP will enlarge our presence on the market of nuclear technologies

The project offered by Russia in the tender for the construction of Belene NPP was the best not only in terms of price but also in terms of safety and efficiency. In other words, it is a project of new generation.

Today, we have prepared all pre-design documents. This reactor meets all existing safety standards and will certainly be a success.

I believe that such projects, including the project in China, will help us to get new contracts on the international market.

The situation has shown that Russian reactors are not as bad as some European media report them to be. We are no worse than the “great” Europeans. By the way, the constructors of Olkiluoto reactor in Finland are already two years behind the schedule and are faced with lots of other problems.

The NPP-92 project to be applied at Belene NPP has received EUR license and meets all European standards. The license has been granted to all the key participants in the project: AEP, Hydropress and Kurchatov Institute.

Our cooperation with Bulgaria in the field of NPP construction has quite good prospects. Bulgaria has two units of Kozloduy NPP and by 2014 it will have two units of Belene NPP.

Besides Bulgaria, our reactors are being built in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Finland. Today, after over a decade of stagnation, our technologies are returning into Europe. The contract for the construction of Belene NPP will enlarge our presence on the market.