News

Ukraine starts using US nuclear fuel

Publish date: August 10, 2005

The Yuzhna Nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine began experimental use of six Westinghouse-supplied nuclear fuel assemblies at reactor no. 3.

The fuel was delivered for free. The agreement between the USA and Ukraine concerning nuclear fuel was signed 5 years ago. Then the Westinghouse representatives completed installation of the nuclear assemblies monitoring system. This system is necessary, as the American nuclear fuel assemblies are different from the Russian ones. Currently, the Russian Corporation TVEL supplies all the fuel used by all the 15 Ukrainian reactors. Ukraine is considering the USA as alternative nuclear fuel supplier. It was planned to test US fuel in 2003, but the project was dragged out.