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Ukraine: Lack of money and N-fuel

Nuclear Monitor Issue: 
#421
04/11/1994
Article

(November 4, 1994) Goskomatom, the Ukrainian State Committee for Nuclear Power Utilization, is very worried about the prospects of nuclear plants in the Ukraine. This is mainly because the government itself cannot provide the 1.6 trillion karbovanets (the Ukrain currency) Goskomatom estimates is needed to maintain the plants the rest of 1994.

(421.4172) WISE Amsterdam - According to the State Committee for Nuclear Power, they cannot finance the work out of its own funds, because the government has frozen the electricity-prices to consumers at two or three times less than it costs to produce. And they don't even pay that because they are bankrupt.

The karbovanet has no exchange rate because ownership of it in cash or bank accounts outside the Ukraine is illegal. Sources say the currency can be purchased in Kiev at rate of 60,000 karbovanets for one U.S. dollar.

In practice this lack of money means that all safety improvement has stopped at operating NPPs. The work would require 3.5 trillion karbovanets in 1994 alone. Of ten reloads required in the first half of 1994, only two were supplied. Goskomatom should pay the Russian fuel supplier about US$350 million, but the Ukrainian government supplies only about US$10 million per month for that purpose. The result is that Zaporozhe 2 and 5 don't have reserve fuel, while fuel for the Chernobyl 's two operating RBMK-1000 units was provided directly from the railroad transport car arriving at the plant. Over the last 3.5 years, the price of fresh fuel from Russia increased by 885 times (!) and is now nearing the international level, according to Ukrainian officials.

The fresh fuel problem has not been resolved by the tripartide agreement between the U.S:, Russia and the Ukraine covering compensation for the withdrawal of nuclear warheads from Ukrainian territory. According to Goskomatom's first deputy chairman Nur Nigmatullin: "on the basis of the tripartide agreement, 180 fuel assemblies have been received so far and another 250 assemblies will be received by the end of 1994. But we require 550 fuel assemblies for VVER plants, and 800 assemblies for RBMK units".

But there is more:
Ukrainian NPPs have lost an estimated US$100 million due to insufficiently reliable control rods in VVER-1000 reactors, whose tendency to rub and stick halfway into the core has made it necessary to decrease power by 30%. Analyzing the fuel (two fuel assemblies from the Zaporozhe nuclear plant in which control rod sticking had been observed), showed deformation and loss of axial stability in the rods. It might be necessary to modify control rod fabrication and possibly even significantly modify VVER-1000 core design.

According to Goskomatom, Ukranian NPP supplied 38.4% of the country's total electricity in the first half of 1994.

Sources:

  • Nucleonics Week, 6 October 1994 (page 7)
  • Nuclear Fuel, 10 October 1994 (page 18)

Contact: Zeleny Svit, Kontaktova 4, Kiev 70, Ukraine. Tel: + 7-044-416. 5218/417.0283;Fax: + 7-044417.4383. email: unicorne@envinet.kievua