In compliance with international commitments, Lithuania will close unit No 1 of the Ignalina nuclear power plant on 31 December 2004. The government approved today the proposal of the Economics Ministry to shut down the power unit on the last day of this year in order to use to the full the reactor's useful work.

In the EU accession agreement, Lithuania undertook to prepare for the closure of power unit one by 2005. Unit No 2 should be closed down in 2009, provided Lithuania gets the necessary international support.

Over 222m litas [84m dollars] has been raised by the plant's decommissioning fund by now. The contributions of donor countries to the international decommissioning fund of the Ignalina plant amount to 238.5m euros (823.5m litas) and are earmarked for the preparatory work related to the plant's closure.

The European Commission has allocated 319m euros (1.1bn litas) for the period of 2004-06 while an additional 815m euros (2.8bn litas) should be allocated for the plant's decommissioning in 2007- 13 under a draft document prepared by the Council of the European Union.

The nuclear plant, which produces about 80 per cent of electricity consumed in Lithuania, is a Chernobyl-type plant with RBMK [high-power pressure-tube] reactors. The reactors are considered unsafe by the West despite the implementation of high nuclear safety programmes financed by Western countries.

The capacity of power unit No 1 is 1,300 MW and 740 MW for unit No 2. The overall capacity of the Lithuanian energy system is 5,450 MW, of which the Ignalina plant accounts for 2,700 MW [as published].

Over the first 10 months of this year, the plant sold 10.912bn kWh of energy which was 3.6 per cent less year-on-year (11.324 kWh).