Energy Minister: Russia ready to issue a loan under sovereign guarantees to Armenia for construction of a new nuclear power unit

By the end of 2013, Armenia will adopt a service life extension program for Metsamor nuclear power plant, Deputy Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Armenia Areg Galstyan said at the 5th technical seminar of chief engineers at Inter RAO UES OJSC.

The minister said that program has been elaborated jointly with Rosatom specialists. The negotiations on the program are almost over. Simultaneously, a new nuclear power unit with 1000MW Russian reactor is to be built within 10 years. It is expected that the 'nuclear island' will be Russian. The turbine island and other systems will be determined on a tender basis. Russia will invest in its part of 'nuclear island.' As regards co-funding by Armenia, the minister said, the budget lacks funds, unfortunately. In this light, the country is so far negotiating with other investors for the Armenian part of the project.  Nevertheless, Russia is ready to issue loan to
Armenia under sovereign guarantees. In the meanwhile, Galstyan said, the year 2014 will be critical. "We have no time. We must take specific steps on construction of the power unit at least in 2014," the deputy minister said.

Two power units of Russian model pressurized water reactor-440, with capacity of 815 megawatt in total have been installed at the Armenian NPP. The first unit was put into exploitation in 1976, the second in 1980. At the beginning of 1989, the plant was closed down for political ideas, and then the second unit was reactivated because of acute energy crisis at the beginning of 1995. The share of NPP is 40%-50% of total energy generation in the country. On April 19 2012, the Armenian government approved the decision on extending the date of operation of the second power unit of the Armenian NPP. Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Armenia Armen Movsisyan stated that the operation license of the second unit will expire on September 1, 2016. Since the construction of the new power unit is
delayed, it is necessary to extend the service life for another 3-4 years. By data of the ministry, the project will cost approximately 5 billion dollars. To raise foreign capital for the project, the Parliament of Armenia cancelled state monopoly on the right to possession of nuclear power units in 2006.