Photo from UNIAN
Poroshenko says during his recent meetings with U.S. President Donald Trump, he agreed the issue of nuclear fuel supplies.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said Ukraine's Yuzhnoukrainsk NPP Power Unit No. 3 near the town of Yuzhnoukrainsk in Mykolaiv region switched to Westinghouse VVER-1000 fuel.
"Today, for the first time, Ukraine's Yuzhnoukrainsk NPP unit started operating on Westinghouse fuel. This is what we've agreed with U.S. President Donald Trump during our meetings in the White House, New York and during the NATO summit in Brussels. And I'm glad the development of our cooperation is being very active," he said.
As UNIAN reported earlier, Energoatom signed an agreement with Westinghouse within diversifying sources of nuclear fuel supplies for Ukrainian nuclear power plants and reducing dependence on a single supplier, Russia's TVEL. In March 2015, Yuzhnoukrainsk NPP successfully completed the loading of upgraded TVS-WR fuel manufactured by Westinghouse at its power unit No. 3. In April 2015, the unit was connected to the country's power grid.
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In February 2016, Energoatom supplied the first batch of Westinghouse nuclear fuel to Zaporizhia NPP. Energoatom's imports of fuel elements containing Westinghouse nuclear fuel accounted for 41.6% in the first six months of 2016, while the share of supplies from Russia was 58.4%.
Westinghouse Electric Company on January 29, 2018, announced that it had signed a nuclear fuel contract extension with Ukraine's State Enterprise National Nuclear Energy Generation Company (SE NNEGC) Energoatom through 2025.
The contract includes nuclear fuel deliveries to seven of Ukraine's 15 nuclear power reactors between 2021 and 2025, expanding and extending the existing contract for six reactors that was set to expire in 2020.