Rosatom completes construction, assembly work at NPP in Bangladesh, starts tests

MOSCOW. Jan 20 (Interfax) - The personnel of the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in Bangladesh have started a program of tests on power unit 1 upon the completion of construction and assembly operations, Russia's Rosatom state atomic energy corporation said.

"The first phase of the operations to run the rector unit at nominal parameters was started on December 18. This phase is designed to test the operability of the equipment and mechanisms. In particular, the main circulation pumps are to be launched and tested for the first time. The program should result in testing the reactor unit at nominal parameters without nuclear fuel to confirm the equipment's compliance with all the design specifications. After undergoing the entire range of tests, the unit will be ready for launch operations," it said.

"We have entered the home stretch in preparing unit 1 of the Rooppur NPP for physical launch," Rosatom quoted its First Deputy CEO Andrei Petrov as saying in the statement.

"We honor all of our obligations and guarantee reliability, safety, and security of our technology," he said.

Rosatom planned the physical launch of the Rooppur NPP last year. The company's CEO, Alexei Likhachev, said also that, in line with the Bangladeshi government's plans, "two power units in a huge country is only the start of a long journey."

Rosatom delivered nuclear fuel to the NPP in 2023. Its power unit 1 was to be put into operation in 2024 and unit 2 in 2025.

Rosatom is building the Rooppur NPP in Bangladesh under an intergovernmental agreement signed in 2011. It will have two reactor units with a total capacity of 2,400 MW. There is currently no nuclear power generation in energy-scarce Bangladesh.