Russia is making progress with its plan to build the BREST-OD-300 reactor - part of its 'Proryv', or Breakthrough, project that aims to develop fast reactors with a closed fuel cycle. BREST is the Russian acronym for 'fast reactor with lead coolant'.

Russian and Bulgarian companies have signed a contract to extend the operating life of unit 6 of the Kozloduy nuclear power plant to 60 years. The agreement - between Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant plc and a consortium of Russia's Rusatom Services and Bulgaria's Risk Engineering Ltd - was signed during a meeting of the Bulgarian-Russian intergovernmental commission on economic and scientific-technical cooperation in Sofia yesterday, by Evgeny Sal'kov, general director of Rusatom Services, and Dimitar Angelov, executive director of Kozloduy NPP plc.

AEM Technology has completed welding of the lower half of the VVER-1200 reactor vessel for unit 2 of the Belarus nuclear power plant, in Ostrovets, in the Grodno region. The upper half of the reactor vessel was completed in December.

Rosgeologia, the Russian state-run geological exploration services company, has identified "promising" uranium deposits in the North-West Federal District of Russia. The announcement yesterday followed completion of a survey of the Kuol-Panayarvinskaya area on the border of the Murmansk region and the Republic of Karelia.

Excavation work has started at the construction site of the planned Hanhikivi 1 nuclear power plant in Pyhäjoki, Finland. A ceremony was held to mark the start of work to dig the foundation pit on 19 January.

The Russian energy ministry has approved Rosenergoatom's 2016-2018 investment program, allocating almost RUB570 billion ($7 billion) to the civil nuclear power plant operator. The program was approved by a government order dated 14 January and published on the ministry's website yesterday.

Commercial negotiations between Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd and Westinghouse on the construction of six AP1000 units at Mithi Virdi in India are on course to be finalized in 2016, the Indian cabinet has said. Separately, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin have welcomed progress towards identifying a new site for VVERs in India.

Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom has changed the name of its subsidiary JSC Rusatom Overseas to JSC Rusatom Energy International. The change was agreed by Rusatom Overseas shareholders at a meeting chaired by Kirill Komarov, Rosatom's first deputy general director for corporate and international business development, on 23 December.

Russia's Techsnabexport (Tenex) has said that it expects the value of its exports this year to outstrip that of 2014 by $500 million. The Rosatom subsidiary's preliminary results for 2015 indicate that its revenue from the global market will be worth about $2.7 billion.

Bangladesh and Russia have reportedly agreed to invest $12.65 billion in a project to build two 1200 MWe nuclear power units at Rooppur. According to Reuters, the agreement was signed on 25 December by Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission and Russia's Rosatom.

Centrus Energy Corp has reached agreement with Russian uranium enrichment company Techsnabexport (Tenex) to modify the terms of the long-term supply contract they signed in 2011 and to extend their contractual relationship until 2026.

Four Russian institutes have successfully conducted an experiment on the isolation and separation of americium and curium from used nuclear fuel. In a statement today, Russian nuclear fuel manufacturer TVEL said this was a crucial development in work aimed at closing the fuel cycle of fast reactors.