The containers should be further placed at the storage facility at the nuclear icebreakers’ base Atomflot in Murmansk. Atomflot’s Deputy Director Mustafa Kashka said the results of the tender and the winner would be announced by the end of June. Four companies are taking part in the tender: Barrikada from Volgograd, Sevmash from Severodvinsk, EnergoTEKS from Kurchatov and Izhora plants from St Petersburg. According to Kashka, they will look at the following criteria: project cost, licence for work, time frame, and quality guarantee, Interfax reported.

The UK sponsors the containers’ construction in the frames of the Global Partnership program. It was planned originally to announce tender back in November 2004, but due to the lack of the agreement with the British partners, the tender was postponed. At the moment ”the money issue is solved”, Kashka said.

Thanks to this project Lotta will get place for 14 additional reactor zones from the laid-up submarines, what should significantly increase the rate of the nuclear submarines dismantling.