AEM company wins fuel fabrication contract for 'Proryv' project

SverdNIIkhimmash has won a RUB5.7 billion ($784 million) contract to design, manufacture and supply equipment for fuel module fabrication and the start-up of "minimum re-fabrication" of fuel for nuclear power plants. SverdNIIkhimmash is a subsidiary of Rosatom's engineering division Atomenergomash (AEM).

The contract serves Rosatom's 'Proryv', or Breakthrough, project to enable a closed nuclear fuel cycle. The ultimate aim is to eliminate production of radioactive waste from nuclear power generation. Specifically, the contract serves the pilot demonstration reactor BREST-OD-300, which is to be built at the site of Siberian Chemical Combine (SCC), another Rosatom subsidiary, based in Tomsk. BREST-300 is a lead-cooled reactor system developed by the N A Dollezhal Research and Development Institute of Power Engineering (NIKIET).

Construction of a facility for the production of fuel for SCC is "the first stage and a key element of" the Proryv project and is scheduled for completion in 2017, AEM said in a statement today. SverdNIIkhimmash has already started to develop the required design documentation, it added.

Yuri Chamovskikh, head of SverdNIIkhimmash's dense fuel division, said the company would build the equipment for the contract in close cooperation with the project's subcontractors. SverdNIIkhimmash has "already reached agreement with colleagues" from Moscow's Atomproekt, Saint Petersburg-based Central Design Bureau of Machine-Building, or TsKBM, Novosibirsk's NZKHK-Engineering, Novouralsk's Amk Uekhk, and Moscow-headquartered research and development company Sosny. SverdNIIkhimmash has worked with these companies previously on development of mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel, Chamovskikh said.

SverdNIIkhimmash plans to start manufacturing equipment for the Proryv project in the second half of 2015, he said.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News