Vladimir Zhidkikh, a member of the Federation Council of the RF Federal Assembly, representative of Tomsk Oblast State Duma commented on signing of an agreement on Development of Cooperation in Atomic Energy Peaceful Use between ‘Atomenergoprom’ and ‘Toshiba’.

The Agreement stipulates the commencement of cooperation in designing of nuclear power plants, development of products and services of the nuclear fuel cycle. The companies hope for the strategic partnership later on.

The Agreement gives grounds for drafting the feasibility study on cooperation in various areas of peaceful atomic energy use. Mr. Zhidkikh, a member of the Federation Council Natural Monopolies Committee believes that the cooperation could involve both design and engineering of nuclear power plants and services of the nuclear fuel cycle.

He stated that the Russian nuclear power holding company cooperation established mutually beneficial cooperation with the Japanese corporation. Moreover, today the Ukrainian nuclear power plants built according to the Soviet design are supplied with the fuel from Russian enterprises.

‘However, over a year ago Ukraine claimed the necessity to diversify its fuel market and reduce the Russian supplies. That was the time when the Ukrainian nuclear power plants started using the pilot fuel assemblies manufactured by the company ‘Westinghouse’ which is part of the consortium ‘Toshiba - Westinghouse’.

‘The use of the same fuel on a Czech nuclear power plant proved to be a failure. One of the accidents happened due to depressurization of the fuel assemblies. Despite this the Ukrainians keep on using them,’ said Mr. Zhidkikh. ‘Given the signing of the Agreement on the Strategic Partnership I do not see any point in trying to make ‘Westinghouse’ another fuel partner. Why trying to obtain one and the same product from different department of the same consortium? It’s a rhetorical question,’ he emphasized.

Reference
In 2006 Toshiba Corporation - a Japanese producer of nuclear reactors - bought 77% of shares of the American company Westinghouse Electric, a constructor of the most nuclear power plants in the US.
The holding company ‘Atomenrgoprom’ incorporates civil enterprises of Russian atomic industry and is one of the four world leading companies on the market of products and services of the nuclear fuel cycle. It is only outpaced by the international alliances: Toshiba - Westinghouse , Areva - Siemens and GE - Hitachi.