On February 3 in Moscow Minister of Atomic Energy Alexander Rumyantsev met British Nuclear Fuels Ltd’s, or BNFL, Chief Executive Michael Parker, ITAR-TASS reported. The parties discussed the current cooperation between Minatom’s companies and BNFL in the field of nuclear fuel cycle, reactor installation, nuclear safety improvement, nuclear plant upgrades and enhancement of performance. Russia was also presented by TVEL, Tekhsnabexport and Rosenergoatom companies. The particular issues discussed included interaction between TVEL and BNFL regarding fabrication of fresh nuclear fuel and its components; Tekhsnabexport talked over exports of the Russian uranium enrichment services and nuclear material shipments to foreign customers under the agreement between Tekhsnabexport and BNFL where BNFL secures transportation and logistics services for deliveries of the Russina uranium products under contracts with European and Japanese customers, Nuclear.ru reported.

In context of the U.K. program of rendering assistance to Russia to enhance nuclear power plant safety (Nuclear Safety Program – NSP) and cooperation between Rosenergoatom and BNFL the issued were discussed regarding improvement of nuclear safety of reactor installations, upgrades and performance improvement of nuclear power plants, in particular, upgrades of diagnostics and monitoring systems, control and protection systems, radwaste management, increase of load factor, transfer of BNFL’s experience in decommissioning of nuclear power units, and personnel training in accordance with the international quality standards, Nuclear.ru reported.