Ukraine expects to receive first batch of Westinghouse fuel for VVER-440 reactors before end of 2023

MOSCOW. March 10 (Interfax) - Ukraine expects to receive the first batch of nuclear fuel produced by the U.S. company Westinghouse for VVER-440 power units as early as this year, head of the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine Oleg Korikov said.

"Thanks to our joint project with the United States and Westinghouse, we have actually established a licensed manufacturer of nuclear fuel that can be used and is used in VVER [VVER-1000] reactors, and now the fuel is being supplied to Ukrainian nuclear power plants [NPPs]. So far, there is no such degree of readiness for VVER-440s, but by the end of the year we planned to load the first batch of Westinghouse fuel into VVER-440 power units," Ukrainian media quoted Korikov as saying at a press briefing at the Media Center in Kiev on Thursday.

"This is our major common task with the Americans, which we are now jointly tackling," he said.

As reported, Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galuschenko said in early March that Ukrainian NPPs would be able to completely switch to Westinghouse fuel by the end of 2023.

Galushchenko also said that Russia had an almost monopoly position on the market of fuel for VVER-440 units, and Ukraine and the U.S. were working to enable Westinghouse to start producing fuel assemblies for these units this year.

The Energoatom national nuclear energy generating company of Ukraine, which operates the country's nuclear power plants, stopped buying Russian nuclear fuel completely after February 24, 2022. Energoatom and Westinghouse signed an agreement at the Khmelnitsky NPP on June 2 of that year to supply nuclear fuel to all Ukrainian NPPs with 15 power units (this fuel is currently loaded in seven units).

Energoatom President Pyotr Kotin, in turn, said that Westinghouse would be ready to cover Energoatom's fuel needs for Ukraine's 13 VVER-1000 reactors by the end of 2023. The NPPs currently have sufficient stockpiles of fuel, he said.

As regards a timeline for deliveries of Westinghouse fuel for two VVER-440 reactors at the Rovno NPP, Kotin said before the crisis that the first batch of U.S. fuel for VVER-440 reactors would be delivered in 2025. However, in March 2022, he spoke about the need to start such deliveries as early as 2023.