Pashinyan and Rosatom CEO discuss construction of new nuclear power plant in Armenia
YEREVAN, May 2. /ARKA/. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and CEO of Russian state atomic agency Rosatom Alexei Likhachev discussed today in Yerevan a set of issues relating to the construction of a new nuclear power plant in Armenia, the Armenian government reported.
Pashinyan was said to stress the importance of cooperation between the Armenian government and Rosatom corporation, which are implementing successfully a set of joint projects.
On the partnership in the nuclear energy sphere, Pashinyan pointed out Rosatom's role in extending the service life of the second power unit of the Armenian NPP.
In his turn Likhachev assessed the work with Armenian partners as effective and said that Rosatom is interested in continuing mutually beneficial partnership.
In the context of bilateral cooperation the sides discussed current programs and prospects of new initiatives. They spoke also about a new extension of the service life of the NPP and looked into possible cooperation in neutralizing hazardous waste at Nairit Plant in Yerevan.
The Armenian NPP is located some 30 kilometers west of Yerevan. It was built in the 1970s but was closed following a devastating earthquake in 1988. One of its two VVER 440-V230 light-water reactors was reactivated in 1995.
In March 2014, the Armenian government decided to extend the plant’s service life up to 2026. The service life extension was financed by $270 million Russian loan and a $30 million grant. The plant generates up to 40% of all electric power in Armenia.
Earlier, it was said that Rosatom was working out a project for eliminating chemical waste at Nairit enterprise in Yerevan, once one of the largest producers of synthetic rubber. One of the flagships of the chemical industry of the USSR, Nairit was in soviet times a monopolist in synthetic rubber production. In 1989, under pressure from the environmental movement, Nairit was shut down and fell into decay; a few years later the government of the already independent Armenia decided to re-launch it, but the markets were already lost.
Over the past decades the enterprise had changed hands and accumulated huge debts; from 2010 it began to stand idle and bankruptcy proceedings were initiated. Nairit was declared bankrupt by a court in Yerevan in 2016 because of its failure to pay electricity bills totaling 1.24 billion drams. --0--
