REUTERS
The deal was extended to 2025.
This fall, after a political decision was made to terminate the framework Ukraine-Russia Treaty of Friendship, an agreement was concluded in the atmosphere of secrecy with the Russian company TVEL on extending until 2025 nuclear fuel supplies to most of the Ukrainian NPP units.
The contract was set to expire in 2020, ZN.UA wrote.
The signing of the document "may further consolidate (if not perpetuate) the dominance of the aggressor state in the strategic sector that gives Ukraine 55-60% of electricity, and significantly weaken national energy security, " the report reads.
The agreement signed with the Russians gives TVEL until 2025 the dominant position in the Ukrainian market (eight of 15 reactors). Thus, under the conditions of aggression on the part of the Russian side, Russian TVEL gets 60% of fuel supplies for nuclear reactors, while the U.S.-based Westinghouse, given contractual obligations to provide NPPs with fuel if Russia ceases supplies, is 40%, according to the publication.
As UNIAN reported earlier, in January-September 2018, Ukraine imported fuel assemblies (fuel) for nuclear power plants worth a total of $364.8 million.
Read alsoYuzhnoukrainsk NPP's power unit 3 starts operating on U.S.-made fuel: Poroshenko
According to the State Statistics Agency, during the reporting period, Ukraine purchased in Russia some 213.3 tonnes of nuclear fuel for $243.4 million (in the overall structure of purchases, the share of Russian fuel was 66.72%), and 176.2 tonnes in Sweden, worth $121.4 million. The share of deliveries from Sweden was 33.28%.
As part of the diversification of nuclear fuel supplies and reduction of dependence on one source – theRussian company TVEL – the state-owned Energoatom in April 2014 concluded an agreement with Westinghouse, which produces fuel at its plant in Sweden.
At the end of January 2018, Energoatom and Westinghouse extended the supply contract until 2025. To date, the Swedish fuel has been put in Zaporizhia and Yuzhnoukrainsk NPP.