Sep 10 - BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union

 

Ukraine is spending an additional 15m euros a year on maintaining Chernobyl nuclear power station due to delays in removing nuclear fuel from the station.

First Deputy Emergencies Minister Tetyana Amosova said this at a news conference on 9 September.

She said that the delay is due to the failure to fulfil international projects. She said that Ukraine would start removing the fuel by the end of the year and plans to finish doing so in 2-3 years. The fuel will be stored in the first storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. She also said that Ukraine would no longer use the services of the French firm Farmatom for building a second storage facility and would demand an international audit of the company's work due to technical problems.