Cooperation on nuclear power technology is to be expanded between China General Nuclear and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission under an agreement signed yesterday in Beijing. New Areva and China National Nuclear Corporation have also agreed to work towards signing a contract for the construction of a used fuel processing and recycling facility in China.

China's first AP1000 fuel production line has now produced 64 sets of fuel assemblies ready for the first reloading of the Sanmen AP1000 units. Both Sanmen AP1000s are scheduled to begin operating later this year.

Russia plans to start construction next year of a nuclear fuel fabrication facility for its lead-cooled fast-neutron Brest-OD-300 reactor, Siberian Chemical Combine said on 27 December. Based in Tomsk, Siberia, SCC is a subsidiary of TVEL, the nuclear fuel manufacturing unit of state nuclear corporation Rosatom.

Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited has announced a further three-year delay in the schedule for completing the Rokkasho reprocessing plant and J-MOX mixed-oxide fuel fabrication plant. The delay is due to additional regulatory requirements.

Magnox Ltd has emptied more than half of the used fuel from the Wylfa reactors on Anglesey, in Wales, the UK's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said today. When operating, Wylfa's two reactors together contained nearly 100,000 fuel elements.

The process of loading the 163 fuel assemblies into the core of unit 1 of the Leningrad Phase II nuclear power plant in western Russia began on 8 December, state nuclear corporation Rosatom announced. The VVER-1200 unit is scheduled to start up next year.

The UK government has announced a series of measure that aim to realise the full potential of the of the country's nuclear power industry. The document 'Government to support development of next-generation nuclear technology' follows publication of the Industrial Strategy white paper last month, a core objective of which is to "ensure the UK is developing the technologies of the future and preparing to seize the opportunities they bring and build on its strengths", the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) said.

A contract to recover and encapsulate low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste at the Marcoule nuclear research site has been awarded to Areva Projets SAS and the Wood Group by the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission. The contract covers some 50 tonnes of waste resulting from the treatment of fuels used in former plutonium-producing reactors there.

Lightbridge Corporation has signed orders with the Institute for Energy Technology, operator of Norway's Halden research reactor, for the design and fabrication of a second irradiation rig for testing of its fuels. The IFE is already manufacturing a first test rig ready for irradiation testing of Lightbridge's fuel samples in the reactor.

Foratom, the European nuclear trade body, yesterday published the priorities for Brexit negotiations in relation to the nuclear industry. The organisation said the European Union and UK should immediately start negotiating their post-Brexit relationship and, if necessary, transitional arrangements in order to avoid any disruption to the nuclear fuel cycle.

Russia's Federal Centre for Nuclear and Radiation Safety, Rosenergoatom and Mayak Production Association have completed the "hot tests" for TUK-141O casks for the transport of used nuclear fuel. The cask will replace the 13th series of transport containers and is licensed to move used fuel assemblies from VVER-1000 reactors.

Some of the fuel in the damaged unit 3 of the Fukushima Daiichi plant has melted and dropped into the primary containment vessel, initial results from using a muon detection system indicate. Part of the fuel, however, is believed to remain in the reactor pressure vessel.