Amendments to Belarusian-Russian agreement on nuclear power plant loan ratified

The House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus ratified the protocol on amendments to the Belarusian-Russian intergovernmental agreement on granting a state export loan to Belarus for the sake of building the Belarusian nuclear power plant on 9 April, BelTA has learned.

The agreement was amended due to the re-organization of the agency in charge of supervising the construction of the Belarusian nuclear power plant. In the past the nuclear power plant construction directorate was a state institution. Now it is a republican unitary enterprise.

The ratified protocol will allow uninterrupted funding of the construction project, Belarusian Deputy Finance Minister Dmitry Kiyko explained in the lower chamber of the Belarus parliament on 9 April.

The Belarusian nuclear power plant is a project to build an AES-2006 type nuclear power plant 18km away from Ostrovets, Grodno Oblast. The power plant will have two power-generating units with the total output capacity of up to 2,400MW (2x1,200MW). The Russian merged company OAO NIAEP – ZAO ASE is the general designer and the general contractor of the project. In line with the general contract for building the nuclear power plant the first power-generating unit is scheduled for commissioning in 2018, with the second one to go online in 2020.