Russia plans new reactor at Leningrad

London (Platts Energy in East Europe)--24May2004

Russia's plans to push ahead with the construction of a new 1,500MW reactor at
the Leningrad nuclear power plant as a result of the recent failure of the 
country's nuclear industry to win a tender to construct a unit in Finland, 
Rosenergoatom's General Director Oleg Saraev said. The new schedule calls for 
the design to be completed in 2007 and construction of the first unit to begin
in 2012, Saraev said in an interview posted May 11 on the official site of the
Federal Atomic Energy Agency. 

Russia's Atomstroyexport offered its 1,000MW PWR design for the Finnish 
project, but the contract was instead awarded to a consortium of 
Areva/Framatome ANP and Siemens, which offered its 1,600MW EPR (European PWR) 
design. Saraev said Russia lost the Finnish tender partly because it could not
meet the requirement to supply a large unit like the EPR, and partly because 
Russian industry could not offer the full range of services offered by Areva. 
Saraev said that Russia's 1,000MW VVER design was no longer an attractive 
commodity for future nuclear power generation.

This story was published in Platts Energy in East Europe

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