Ukraine Seeks To Supply Reactors With Its Own Uranium

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine is seeking to supply its nuclear reactors with uranium mined in the country from 2015, Deputy Fuel and Energy Minister Natalia Shumkova said.
Ukraine aims to increase uranium production to 5,000 metric tons a year in 2020 and 6,000 tons in 2030, from 830 tons, Shumkova said at a conference in Kiev today. The eastern European country needs to invest 9.9 billion hryvnia ($1.25 billion) in uranium output through 2013, she said.

The ministry this week announced a tender to build a uranium plant and will pick a winner by early October, according to Shumkova. Russia’s OAO Tvel and Toshiba Corp.’s Westinghouse Electric Co. have the experience to build the plant, she said.

Ukraine plans to construct a third nuclear reactor at its Khmelnytskyi power plant by 2016 and a fourth by 2017, Yuriy Nedashkovskyi, the president of DP NAEK Energoatom, Ukraine’s state-owned operator of nuclear power stations, said at the same event. The construction is worth 30.1 billion hryvnia, he said.

The country’s nuclear capacity will double by 2030 by extending the lifespan of current reactors by 15 years and by building new generators, Nedashkovskyi said.

Energoatom had first quarter net income of 380 million hryvnia, Nedashkovskyi said, without elaborating. Ukrainian nuclear power plants will produce 87 billion kilowatt-hours of energy this year, he said.