At the 62nd session of the IAEA, held in Vienna, the head of Rosatom, Alexei Likhachev, said that the Russian side had officially started work on a project to build the second and third power units at the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran.
Both sides agreed on all organizational and financial issues, and Rosatom is starting to implement the contract signed with Iran in November 2014. In 2016, the construction of the first unit of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, which is considered the most difficult in the history of the world nuclear project, was officially completed. German nuclear power engineers began building this unit before the 1979 Islamic revolution, and the russians had to build a VVER-1000 reactor into this base.
The second and third power units of the Bushehr NPP, as well as the first, will be built on the basis of the VVER-1000 reactors of the so-called “Indian project”, designed specifically for seismically active territories. Iran was in no hurry to start construction, preferred to wait until all stages of the industrial launch of the first power unit were completed. In March 2017, the reactor reached its design capacity, but under the terms of the contract, the so-called warranty period passed during the next calendar year. Rosatom gradually transferred operational control to Iranian professionals, who were trained in Russia. Making sure that all the plans were fully implemented, the Iranian side agreed on the final clauses of the contract, which was recorded in the statement of Alexei Likhachev.
The development of political, economic, military cooperation between Russia and Iran is not without difficulties, but “nuclear diplomacy” again gives an excellent result. Rosatom continues to expand the sphere of scientific and technological influence, strengthens the position of russian design and engineering school.
