IAEA mission to visit Belarus in H1 2015

The mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) plans its regular visit to Belarus in the first half of 2015, Anatoly Bondar, Chief Engineer of the enterprise Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant, said during the press conference hosted by BelTA on 11 March.

“The IAEA regular mission is scheduled for the first half of the year. Soon we will welcome specialists of the international agency from the department of guarantees on the exchange of experience and the movement of nuclear material,” he said.

In his words, Belarus has established constructive and robust cooperation with the IAEA at the level of its Energy Ministry, Gosatomnadzor, and the enterprise Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant as the operating company. “We regularly cooperate through meetings, checks and seminars. The IAEA representatives visit the Ostrovets construction site once in three months to discuss various issues, including the personnel training,” Anatoly Bondar said.

The Belarusian nuclear power plant is a project to build an AES-2006 type nuclear power plant 18km away from Ostrovets, Grodno Oblast. The power plant will have two power-generating units with the total output capacity of up to 2,400MW (2x1,200MW). The Russian merged company OAO NIAEP – ZAO ASE is the general designer and the general contractor of the project. In line with the general contract for building the nuclear power plant the first power-generating unit is scheduled for commissioning in 2018, with the second one to go online in 2020.