A feasibility study on the construction of nuclear power plants in Jordan is to be prepared in the first half of next year, Sergey Kirienko, director general of the Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom said today. Kirienko spoke to reporters at the second Eastern Economic Forum that opened today in the Russian city Vladivostock.

Asia is one of the regions where nuclear energy is "high on the agenda" and could be one of the drivers for global nuclear power deployment, according to the deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Plans to construct six Westinghouse AP1000s in India have been bolstered by a joint statement issued after a bilateral strategic dialogue yesterday. The two sides also pledged to work towards India's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

VC Summer unit 2's reactor vessel was placed inside the unit's containment yesterday, the first such operation to take place in the USA in over 30 years.

Unit 2 of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in India's southern state of Tamil Nadu has been connected to the electricity grid. It becomes India's 22nd operating power reactor.

Installation of the reactor internals within the pressure vessel has been completed at unit 3 of the Tianwan nuclear power plant in China's Jiangsu province. The Russian-supplied VVER-1000 is scheduled to start up in 2018.

First concrete has been poured for the conventional island of Fuqing 6 - the second Hualong One unit under construction at the site in China's Fujian province. Both Hualong One units currently under construction at Fuqing should be in operation by 2020.

The Rubin Central Design Bureau for Marine Engineering, based in Saint Petersburg, Russia, is reviving plans from the 1980s to establish a system for the underwater exploration of mineral resources. The Russian Nuclear Community reports on its website atomic-energy.ru today that federal agencies are considering the use of a nuclear reactor to power this proposed system.

The largest module has been installed at the Vogtle 4 nuclear construction project in the US state of Georgia. Emplacement of the CA20 module marks the heaviest lift at the project so far this year.

Russia has reached two more milestones in its endeavour to close the nuclear fuel cycle. Mashinostroitelny Zavod (MSZ) - part of Russian nuclear fuel manufacturer TVEL - has completed acceptance tests of components for its ETVS-14 and ETVS-15 experimental fuel assemblies with mixed nitride fuel for the BREST and BN fast neutron reactors. MSZ has also announced the start of research and development work on the technical design of the "absorbent element" of the core of the BREST-OD-300 reactor.

Installation of the steam generators has been completed at unit 3 of the Barakah nuclear power plant under construction in the United Arab Emirates. All four units at the site should be in operation by 2020.