Rosatom mulls 40 non-nuclear projects in Belarus

MINSK. May 24 (Interfax) - Rosatom, Russia's state nuclear corporation is discussing about 40 non-nuclear projects with the Belarusian authorities, Rosatom CEO Alexei Likhachev said at a meeting with Belarusian Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko in Minsk on Thursday.

"We're considering about 40 projects in the non-nuclear sector. They are at various stages of readiness, but each one of them, in our view, will become an attractive industrial, production project with new jobs, tax revenues and further development of competencies, including for supplies to third countries," Likhachev was quoted as saying by state news agency BelTA.

After building the Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant, Rosatom "is not stopping there," he said. He also said that the implementation of planned projects should result in the creation of "businesses with attractive economic parameters."

Golovchenko said at the meeting that, with Rosatom's "direct participation," an essentially "new sector of the economy was established [in Belarus] that has become a major driver for the introduction of new technologies and new innovative solutions."

"With the completion of the construction of the Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant, not only have our relations with Rosatom not stalled, they are successfully developing in a whole range of areas," Golovchenko said.

He recalled that the Belarusian and Russian governments earlier signed a memorandum on deepening strategic cooperation in the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and related technologies, as well as a comprehensive Russian-Belarusian program for cooperation on nuclear non-energy and non-nuclear projects.

"I want to assure you that we are intent on expanding collaboration with state corporation Rosatom," Golovchenko said.

The Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant, built based on the Russian VVER-1200 design, is located near the city of Ostrovets, Grodno region. It has two generating units with capacity of 1.2 GW each. The general contractor for the construction of the plant is Rosatom's ASE Group and the project was financed with a Russian government loan of $10 billion.

The first generating unit of the BelNPP was connected to the grid in November 2020 and went into commercial operation in June 2021, and the second unit was connected in May 2023 and went into commercial operation on November 1.