Belarusian nuclear station at 15% investment mark

About 15% of the total intended volume of investments has been spent as part of the project to build the Belarusian nuclear power plant, said Andrei Barkun, Deputy Director General, Head of the Capital Construction Office of the enterprise Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant, during the press conference arranged by BelTA on 11 March.

“In money terms about 15% of the total volume of investments or $1.29 billion has been utilized since the beginning of the project,” Andrei Barkun remarked.

BelTA reported earlier that the total cost of the Belarusian nuclear power plant is supposed to be at most $11 billion. The Belarusian and Russian governments have signed an agreement on a loan to build the Belarusian nuclear power plant. The loan is meant to cover 90% of the cost of all the operations required to build the power plant.

Andrei Barkun specified that the third stage of the project is now in progress at the Ostrovets construction site. The stage involves the bulk of the construction operations. “We are now working on 71 facilities of the Belarusian nuclear power plant. In accordance with the overall cost estimation a total of 128 facilities of varying importance will be built,” he added. In 2015 construction and installation operations will be carried out at 102 primary and auxiliary facilities of the Belarusian nuclear power plant. There are plans to install 50,000 tonnes of reinforcement bars and reinforcing goods and pour 360,000m3 of concrete this year.

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.

The construction of the Belarusian nuclear power plant proceeds in full compliance with the master schedule specified by the general contract of 18 July 2012. As much as 100% of the construction and installation operations intended to be completed in 2014 have been fulfilled. Last year saw 40,000 tonnes of reinforcement bars installed (32.9% of the total volume) and 342,200m3 of concrete poured (31.7%).