The first stage of the facility will be able to accommodate 30 empty reactor compartments, Interfax reported with the reference to the Nerpa shipyard chief engineer Rostislav Rimdenok. The tests of the German-sponsored equipment have been successfully completed, he added. The reactor compartments will be shipped with the help of floating dock from the Nerpa shipyard, where retired nuclear submarines are being scrapped.

The completed facility should be able to receive 120 reactor compartments as well as radwaste from the nuclear service ships. The end for the construction is scheduled for 2008. The project will solve the problem of safe storage for the reactor compartments, seventy of which are currently stored afloat in Sayda bay. The Russian Kurchatov Institute and the German Energiewerke Nord GmbH, or EWN are supervising the project.