EcoLur
RA Ministry of Finance has applied to RF Ministry of Finance with a proposal to postpone the term for using the loan of US$270 million and repayment term granted for the lifetime extension of the second power unit of the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant, as Acting Minister for Energy Infrastructures and Natural Resources Garegin Baghramyan said at his visit paid to the ANPP on 27 November. He paid a visit to the ANPP together with the RF Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador Sergey Kopirkin to learn about the progress of works. ‘At this moment, as certain works are postponed up to 2021, our Ministry of Finance has applied to RF Ministry of Finance, as the loan term shall be extended. At the same time, we raised the issue of postponing the repayments for the same time period as well, as we will have the aggregate capacity in the second half of 2020 and, naturally, the loan repayment shall be postponed to this time,’ Garegin Baghramyan said. According to him, if the station usually produced 2.4 billion kwph electricity, as a result of general re-equipment it will produce at least 2.9 billion kwph electricity. “That is, the nuclear power station will deliver around 500 million kwph more electricity. Producing 100 million kwph electricity creates saving of 2-2.5 billion AMD in the energetic system. The figures I mentioned won’t directly reduce the tariff of the electricity. The final consumer won't be affected, as a part of it will be directed to the repayment of the loan,' Garegin Baghramyan said.
Evgeny Salkov, General Director of 'Rusatom Service' JSC, the contractor of the lifetime extension of the second power unit of the ANPP, mentioned that the prolongation of certain works doesn't envisage any new financial burden. He mentioned that the works envisaged for 2019 will be doubled as compared with 2018, while ANPP General Director Movses Vardanyan said about the works planned for 2019, 'Next year we are planning works in machine hall and wide-scale works in the reactor section. Under the preliminary schedule, the stoppage is planned for 105 days. As a result, our annual production, so-called plan, which is now 1 billion 872 kwph electricity, is planned to be 2 billion 72 million kwph electricity next year. As a result of turbine replacement, we will have an increase in capacities by 10%.’ Movses Vardanyan noted that in 2018 the ANPP was stopped for 65 days for its modernization works.
There are already 52 contracts with an aggregate value of 204 million USD signed for the works to be performed for the lifetime extension of the ANPP second power unit. Over the past recent years, the operation term of over 2055 units of professional components, systems, and structures have been prolonged. The works are planned to be accomplished by the end of 2021.
Reminder: The lifetime extension works of the second power unit of the ANPP are carried out in the frames of the intergovernmental agreement signed between the Republic of Armenia and the Russian Federation. The end of the lifetime of the second power unit is 2026.
RF Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador Sergey Kopirkin to Armenia said about this Armenian-Russian cooperation, ‘The cooperation in the sector of nuclear energy is a very important part of the relationships between our countries. This cooperation is under the strict control of the Republic of Armenia and the Russian Federation. Currently, there are plans to establish a working group to examine the perspectives of the cooperation in this field after the end of the operation of Metsamor nuclear power plant. I’m not a professional, but as far as I know, “Rosatom” has very interesting perspective developments in this viewpoint, which can be interesting for Armenia.”
November 27, 2018 at 20:19